Shelley Ettinger
Mania
The tulips! The tulips! Trace
rootward my trance state
Induced by pinkest rubymost
peachy lemonade shades
Stupidest stupor! I admit it!
I'm ashamed!
Tritest daze! Most shameless
cliché!
Yet the tulips! The tulips!
I'm woozy. Oy vey
The velveteen petals. The
bell-sex-cup shape
The clandestine closure the
secrets contained
The manifest innocence blithe
breezy sway
Upended umbrella open catch
me I'm rain
I drop in I tumble cached
embraced cradled framed
The mother. The lover. The
cadre tutor mate
The tulips! The tulips! The
tulips! The tulips!
Track bloomward my mania.
It's in an advanced state
Shelley Ettinger's work is in La Petite
Zine, Lodestar Quarterly, Blithe House Quarterly,
Word Is Bond, Epiphany, Hamilton Stone Review,
Glass Tesseract, Mudlark, Pindeldyboz, Mississippi
Review (Winter 04, forthcoming Fall 04), and other journals. A
secretary at New York University, she is completing her first novel. | 