THE AFTERLIFE BLUES
Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath
and Alejandra Pizarnik
are sitting together
in a cafe called
the Afterlife Blues.
Pizarnik and Plath
drink black coffee
from white diner mugs.
Sexton just chain-smokes.
There’s nobody else
in the cafe except them
and a fat guy in a white apron,
who looks like Curly Howard
and occasionally appears
to offer refills
from the steaming pot
in his hand.
“I did it,” says Plath,
“with the oven in my kitchen.”
“I did it,” says Pizarnik,
“with a fistful of pills
in my bedroom.”
“I did it,” says Sexton,
“with the car in my garage.”
Plath sips her java.
“Didn’t you say
that yesterday?”
Pizarnik swirls
the dark liquid
in her mug.
“I can hear you
through your wolf mask,”
she says. “And you did.”
Sexton puffs on
her cigarette and scowls.
“Quit showing off,”
she says, exhaling.
“You don’t even know
what the fuck that means.”
Plath drums the sides
of her mug with her nails.
“Well, you did,” she says.
Sexton ashes on the floor
and licks her lips.
“Save it for someone
who gives a damn.”
Curly waddles in
through a swinging door,
brandishing his coffee pot.
“A little heat, ladies?”
he asks, brightly.
“No,” say all three
women in tandem.
“For the two-millionth time,”
adds Sexton, brushing
her brunette hair from her eyes
with a long, delicate finger.
“Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!”
laughs Curly, as
he heads back
to the kitchen.
©2023 Jack Phillips Lowe All rights reserved.
Jack Phillips Lowe is a resident of the Chicago area. His poems have appeared in Clutch 2023, Rye Whiskey Review and Poetry Super Highway. His most recent book, Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018), is available on Amazon. Lowe is currently working on a new poetry chapbook.