oh juliet
Daphne Gottlieb

I couldn't help it - you drank the poison so I couldn't help myself - your lips were so cold and didn't move and there she was and you weren't moving and you were so cold and so I fell on that dagger, so warm and sharp, and she kissed, she kissed me oh so good and still you didn't even open your eyes, I kissed that butch thing again and again and she kissed me back and I opened my eyes to check that still you didn't, you hadn't opened your eyes, that your eyes were still

and then all of a sudden, all of a sudden (god help me I was glad and then) I closed my eyes and opened wider, much wider

© Daphne Gottlieb

San Francisco-based performance poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter using her tongue. She is the author of Final Girl (Soft Skull Press, 2003), Why Things Burn (Soft Skull Press, 2001) and Pelt (Odd Girls Press, 1999). She is the winner of the Publishing Triange's 2003 Audre Lorde Award for Poetry and a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award (Special Recognition — Spoken Word). She is currently at work editing an anthology entitled Homewrecker: An Atlas of Illicit Loves, as well as a fourth book of poetry, Kissing Dead Girls.

© Soft Skull

© Soft Skull

© Odd Girls