with sleep (poem)

with sleep

Beginning her life, her adulthood

slogging to a deficit uncaught up with

She would doze through obligation, be forced awake

at the job she worked at

And her nights where she did not

sit plotting her film career of statement art, of strong femme-centric views

Aridly, no    she did not see herself    without a passion

as actors on the screen have passions

Because it was 1980, she had wanted Diane Keaton

Melanie Mayron

Clashing sisters, talk and drugs, but with ballet

If the women with the flying hair

At last before their lovers, only for the pallid-faced

Rain-spattered sacrificial

Promise, in dialogue, don’t go

Can’t you see, this is not about me

He leaves

He turns, he kisses her once more, he leaves

He dies of course

Cinematic widows by the score

Haunt from the room’s corner

To cope with neglect of the body lived in

she saw herself become one, a relict

Preserved in youth, in replay

Puppeting ghosts onscreen daily

in her room’s corner

She aged, and weathered

she might age, she might weather

arms and legs, warmed up, still might sashay

stretch at the barre, in her Three-Remembered-Poses ballet

with sleep

knew

(2025, Stephanie Foster)