Dorothea Lasky

 

I fell in love once with a train conductor. He used to oil the trains with his urine and belch on himself. We would go places with his parents and they would belch too. No I wasn’t surprised. My wits were always about me. I stayed demure like a demon, quietly reapplying my lipstick on the hour and half-hour. My lipstick was called Ancient Brick but really it was more of a mauve. Right before the love affair ended his mother and I would sneak in the bathroom together and change stockings.

 

Dorothea Lasky is the author of four books of poetry, most recently ROME (W.W. Norton/Liveright, 2014), as well as Thunderbird, Black Life, AWE, all out from Wave Books. She is the co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (McSweeney’s, 2013) and several chapbooks, including Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, co-directs Columbia Artist/Teachers, and lives in New York City.