Nicola Maye Goldberg

ROMEO VS. JULIET

at your wife’s birthday party

I fell down the stairs

& stayed there forever

HALLELUJAH

I want to write a poem

that will make you

love me. Something

so good

that when your wife reads it,

she’ll be like – yeah,

I get it. No hard feelings.

Maybe Leonard Cohen

would understand me.

I wish I cared

about anything

besides love. Like money

or justice or

music or time.

The world is so full

of beautiful women but

I am not

one of them. I am a

green ribbon. I am a slit throat.

Nicola Maye Goldberg is the author of Other Women (Sad Spell Press) and Nothing Can Hurt You (Bloomsbury). She lives in New York City.