Lisa Wiley teaches creative writing at SUNY Erie Community College in Buffalo, NY. She is the author of three previous chapbooks including Chamber Music (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in Chest, Earth’s Daughters, Flash Frontier, The Healing Muse and Journal of the American Medical Association, among others. She has read her work throughout New York state and has served as a regional judge for Poetry Out Loud.
Find Lisa Wiley on Twitter @wileymoz.
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A Note to Kate Spade’s Daughter
I couldn’t afford one of your mother’s purses,
scoured the counterfeit vendors in vain
for a seafoam green wallet whenever I roamed New York.
Her classic American style always on my wish list.
Those sleek designs in bright, bold colors
while dark caverns lingered within—
my own walls painted taxicab yellow, Sausalito blue
to escape that taunting darkness.
Bea, it must have been one of those black ink days
when she fell into a deep stone well,
a well so deep and dark
your sparkling eyes couldn’t penetrate,
so she scratched a note and tied that red scarf
around her neck to hoist herself out,
coloring her world forever incandescent.
No one intends to leave a middle school girl behind.