Sarah V. Schweig's poems have appeared in publications such as BOMB Magazine, Boston Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, TheThe Poetry Blog, Western Humanities Review, and Verse Daily, among others. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University, where her manuscript was recipient of the David Craig Austin Memorial Award. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Her Dream Song
Stimulants of any kind
become her. She glows. Miss S
drinks coffee each morning, each evening.
Between, though, she lags,
calls it a case of the afternoons,
citing Sartre—
3 o’clock is too early
—& too late—to do anything
you want to do.
But she hates philosophy,
the tweeded literati
in all their intellect glitter.
—Mr Wonderful tells her
late at the all-night luncheonette
that she owes nothing
to those women—those aprons—
behind the counter & that she looks
good in red.
Miss S late through Harlem goes
home to the dark apartment
of her soul.
—Mr Wonderful doesn’t
—what?—
seem that wonderful.
Does she dream?
Of course. No wonder
she’s still a miss.