A Love Letter to My Panic

You’re as pretty as a shark. I never thanked you for the

supermarket flowers, those September windows opening

and shutting like a call to prayer. I don’t get off

on pain anymore. I understand now why the one coast

ripped into two; sometimes what’s left of a good heart

is the desire to stop beating. You walk from the East River

to tell me but baba used to sing more why must Miriam

sound like a woman are you sure this air isn’t expired is

that lump a tumor is that husband a lie goddamnit wake up

and love me. You’re the one that showed me the sad lights

of taxicabs, the sigh in that Jenny Lewis song. I made you up,

all heels and mascara. I told you not to listen when I said no.