Kenny Rogers Spins an Empty Room

I wish summer meant more to you
than another chance to leave.

I search in this bathtub
for the unclouded parts of myself.
Even in the mirror,
I go missing.

Each Sunday
there’s a new man,
no God.

I used to watch you from the mezzanine,
where your cheap smoke
went up and the alcohol
down.

All the records you loved
spun until mania reduced them
to black mosaic
overlaying the floorboards.

I have cards written out
for every birthday,

wax-sealed with the letter you
nicknamed me.

But you can live without
texture, sans sound.

In your newfound isolation,
you are free
to search for that worm
in every bottle,

to freeze fire,
then cold burn
in your regret.

Gianna Sannipoli is a student at Masaryk University. Her work has been published in Gold Dust Magazine, The Wild Word, Panoply, and One Sentence Poems, and is forthcoming in Edify Fiction and London Grip. She lives in Brno, Czech Republic.