I’ve had enough with all the sad girls, you said
and I imagined all of history’s women laughing so hard their heads
rolled off into the filthy trash pits of time
So much for solidarity, I said and then we sipped our gin in silence
The girl was twenty-two when from her loft window in the city, she fell
some will say jumped or leaped but I prefer to think fell
I do not mean to undermine intention
only to question the arc of motion
I think of her while driving this highway
I think of her and I think of you
The center lane of traffic has stopped, but on either side, the cars and trucks rush by
it is hard to see what is ahead
We inch forward
A crate full of hats has spilled out on the asphalt
and you, a milliner!
But that was years ago
before your divorce
before you started falling
for men you could not have
bookish men with their bookish wives
You made hats of paper
ornate and delicate
the fine fragile threads you guided through the fine eyes
of such fine, fine needles
You are not a sad girl
not you
Sad girls are young with upturned mouths
Sad girls stay up late with their drinks and their broken hearts
I for one love them all
love them for all that they long for but cannot have
the fragile girls
the ornate and the delicate
the ambitious and the broken-hearted
the girls who cry into their cocktails
and on their kitchen floors while all around them the world swirls
in its stupid cruelty
the girls who have stared out over the city
and for what they have seen there
might fall
or jump
or leap
or perhaps they would take flight
Choose a pretty hat today, sad girls
wear a pretty dress and make your way downtown
Sit at your office desk and let the cityscape astonish you
You have seen before how the days can astonish
You have seen such astonishing things
Mary-Kim Arnold is a writer, artist, arts administrator, and educator. She is the author of The Fish & The Dove: Poems (Noemi Press) and Litany for the Long Moment (Essay Press). Other work has appeared in Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Hyperallergic, and elsewhere. A transnational, transracial Korean-born adoptee, her text and textile work explore themes of hybridity, dislocation, racial and cultural identity, and gender.
photo by Carolyn Kehler
From September 14-25, in honor of her residency at The Betsy Hotel and our 10th anniversary season, SWWIM Every Day will be featuring a selection of poems curated by Sarah Audsley.
Sarah Audsley is the author of Landlock X (Texas Review Press, 2023). A Korean American adoptee, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and a member of The Starlings Collective, Audsley lives and works in northern Vermont. She serves as the Writing Program Director at Vermont Studio Center.
We hope you enjoy this special collaboration!