THE POOR GIRL

The Betty Poems

has a digestion problem.
It does not matter
that she is brilliant
and beautiful. No matter
how much
it's never enough.
Pain
is the only
by-product
that gets
absorbed.
She sits,
spitting out
or puking-up
happiness
in whatever
she swallows--even,
or especially,
me.

And the only doctor
she will admit
to help her
is male.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013