Poetry: Naked in the Therapists Office by Lacie Semenovich

Naked in the Therapist’s Office

My grief pulls the shades
on midnight. Stitches herself
into the bedsheets.
 
My grief turns up at parties wearing
china patterns and telling stories
that bore the gossips.
 
My grief does not sleep. Keeps the dog
up at night sniffing at the doorways.
The dog knows better than my husband
that something is wrong.
 
My grief waltzes as though no one
watches because no one really sees.
 
My grief keeps to herself. Everyone
is wandering their own forests, lost,
seeking, preoccupied. She becomes
translucent in the sunlight.
 
My grief burns tires to get attention
but no one notices. She thinks
herself lovely. My grief tells stories
of alternate timelines. She doesn’t
schedule appointments. She conjures
herself in misplaced thoughts, glimpses
of red, losing lottery tickets.
 
My grief gets naked
in the therapist’s office, covering
her intimate parts with playing cards.
 
My grief metamorphoses from one face
to another. Sips tea with the dead. Burns
letters written in Sanskrit.





Lacie Semenovich is a poet and fiction writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in B O D YSheila-Na-Gig online, QwertyChiron Review, and The Best Small Fictions 2020.  She is the author of a chapbook, Legacies (as Lacie Clark, Finishing Line Press 2012).   

Comments