FIVE POEMS

You in Palazzo Pants

ou agreed to meet him in one of those cafés you imagined yourself writing in if you could afford to live in that city. He was also a writer, but older, and you wanted to know how to get published. , he advised, as in toss your shiny coin into the fountain—heads or tails—before it tarnishes. You didn’t tell him of the internship you once had, in which the only thing that stood between the slush pile and the top editor was you in palazzo pants. And that the top editor, your boss, was a tall, ash-blonde woman who thought your post-it notes on manuscripts hilarious. You didn’t tell him this because you have only thought of it now, because at the time you probably flirted like a knee that responds to a little hammer. When you told your therapist about a hand that slid down your back as you fixed sentences, she said,