What Do You Write About

What do you write about? She asks me. Her jowls are hanging down her face onto her knees. She has not smiled for a long time. Freckles, grizzly bears, paint, lipstick, joy, success, Jewelry, Stonehenge, life, positivity, snakes, dung beetles. She looks shocked. “All in one poem?” Sometimes. Depends on my mood and my muse. I only have one theme, she tells me “Abuse and sorrow.” I think that is two themes, but I keep quiet. “What about joy?” I ask. “I don’t remember any.” “Not one second of joy in your forty-three years?” “No.” She slithers back into her beetle nest and I run off to type this.