The Jailor

Decency is a hopeless weapon. Daily I fall from grace, The big splash, whatever. I should have been a starlet, I should Have had chairs pulled out for me, swirling …

Illustration by Studio Tipi

Decency is a hopeless weapon.
Daily I fall from grace,
The big splash, whatever.

I should have been a starlet, I should
Have had chairs pulled out for me, swirling
Through my twenties in couture:

Marriage is the big lie. Oh sure, love crashed
Into my life, a dark tower of flight
And all its apparatuses, a walking

Muscle with a slick of black hair.
Soon it was legal. A large egg swelling
From the bowl of my hips.

I stared into his heart
And like the Emperor
I was too vain

I said, What a tower, what a prize!
Brute love that, bite by bite,
We indulged, so crazed we bit

Until we tasted the last of it
And stunned ourselves
With our emptiness

I should have gone to Hollywood.
If you’re going to be a trophy
You might as well go for gold.

Stop at nothing, you who are ambitious,
Or, as they say, narcissistic.
Let me tell you this:

There is nothing like a diamond
To cheer, nothing like a cocktail
To numb. Nothing but love to fear.

This appeared in the January/February 2016 issue.

Sina Queyras
Sina Queyras has work forthcoming in Poetry and The Malahat Review.
Studio Tipi
Studio Tipi draws regularly for Monocle and The Weekender.