dollface
life on the ravine not all it was cracked
up to be an idyll with red sunsets off of
western
facing
balcony
in a house where the family harboured
bankrobbers + whores +gamblers
down the road the forest turned blue +
there lived my one truefriend on a dead end
it was daddy who said she was a lesbian
ronnie shimmelstien studied ballet +later pre-
raphaelite painting we met in paris briefly 1983
she told me sitting splayed on my bed that:
while in law school at berkley
she
went
through
a windshield
her father flew her to boston her face now a
replica with small incisions displayed mapping
her pain +self loathing (my mother never loved me)
in her canopied room shimmelstien had a collection
of dolls 116 to be exact beady eyes followed me as i
gorged on white pistachios ($$$)
it was in ’73 that her bubbie was found in the ravine
clutching multiple dolls +screaming or was that my
cousin?
our childhood manor full of savants
+vaunted
sales giants
heroes unt saints
__
Winter 2019/2020
