Madame Bowery
It’s the Seventies and one can’t expect to
see the late 19th century street gangs, nor
Crane’s Maggie & Co.’s despair, nor the
leisure destination of two centuries earlier,
nor the arias filling the small shop run by
Mozart’s librettist. He sings “Così fan tutte,”
but not to you Madame Bowery. Your dress
is scanty and no black train follows it, your
lips are smeared with poison, your eyes
filled with lines sparkle along these streets.
Treading in the cold winter skyline,
your spirit soars as a pearl gray crow.
(for Patti Smith)
—
This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!
Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).
THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.
Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.
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