Lilly (My One and Only)

Lily I—sunset like the head of that grotesque peeping tom you told me about the night I understood we would never belong together, that smiling skull your father went tearing after, those fingers caressing the fabric of rich white girls’ nightgowns sliding off across shoulders of the bay into the inland towns or wherever, and here he is: the moon, Mr. Moon, still crater-faced and silent, still writing you love poems, still riding train cars for fun, still eating from garbage cans and living rough, still young, still waiting for you, tapping for you, here, just behind your darkened bedroom window.

 

Kaj Tanaka’s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Joyland. He is the nonfiction editor at BULL.

Photo credit: Dannebrog

2 Responses to “Lilly (My One and Only)”

  1. Creepy but beautifully poetic.

  2. Lina Chern says:

    Beautiful and scary.

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