Rachel Levitsky

A Poem


I Have a Little Spot


The performance was marvelous.
What is said sometimes helpful.
Writing truncated like contemporary life.
But this time translated and back again.
We relied upon an actress.
She would not disappoint us.
The crowd became restless.
The trance was sometimes broken.
And achieved again.
The wine was bad.
The wine was good.
The food was fine.
The food was inedible.

The ride home terrifying at first. Then a bore. The sleep treacherous. Objects were left in the bed.

The soldier never returned.
The man wanted the bed but not the woman in it.
The waterfront was surrounded with sewage. There was not one pump.
His son was acting out, stealing things.
We swam in the sewage. It took a while for us to bathe.
She tried to teach him a sport she did not know.
They came for food. We stole some for them.
She tried to find a spot on the man that would stop. A spot she could touch.
Fries. And beach fare.
She woke up, feeling dirty.
She had a plan, but no money.
She raised the heat, went back to sleep.
She had saved up several favors.
Empty, though she'd never had it quite like this before.
A baby viable, a womb old.

Rachel Levitsky is a poet and teacher. Her books include Under the Sun, Cartographies of Error, Dearly, Dearly 3,4, 6 and The Adventures of Yaya and Grace. In 1999, she founded New York City's feminist avant garde poetry series Belladonna*.