Gatsby Woman
this poem has been slightly altered from its original format to appear on our website. You can read the poem in its original form through the link to the .pdf here.
After The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘Gatsby Woman’ by Kingo Hamada
And he says he loves me, old sport. Nevermind the shattered glass
on the front porch. Nevermind anything I ever thought of you. I know
he wants to buy me:
Wants to buy and love. Damn fool should know he can’t have both.
Not with this kind of life. His lips like charred cigars and clothes smelling of
silk more expensive than my life. Funny how he reaches an arm out to me
like he reaches out to her. Maybe it’s in the shadow of our faces:
both weathered. Both tired. How many times stuck in the same tug of war. Our skin
folding over with lines like caverns. But he says,
you’re beautiful, old sport. And he says it to her too. He says it with everything in him.
Only a handful of days since he found me,
and even I know what a man looks like when he’s in love. Even with my leash
in his fist, he leans over the dinner table and
She lets his eyes wander. With her, it’s never old sport, is it? Don’t lie to me.
It’s everything to be with her. For her. To be her. She could hold a gun and he’d beg:
Baby shoot me shoot me and the bullet would bang and he would explode in ecstasy.
It’s like gasoline to a fire, building a valley of ashes right in front of God’s eyes.
The smell of smoke would blur and I would cry and
He would walk into the flames open-armed and smiling.
I’m tired of pulling North and South apart. Let them collide. They’ve ruined me enough times.
Killed me enough times. Sunk their teeth into me enough times. I can walk out of this funeral:
scarred and scabbed and running. Nevermind the mansion.
Nevermind the flowers or the bullet or the dead body floating in the water. Nevermind
the eyes of God staring down at me. I can split the dock in two now:
I walk straight down the middle like Moses, and crush that green light till it stops blinking.