Her Lost Days
Where I am,
the calendar doesn’t
matter anymore.
Call it heaven,
if that makes it
easier for you.
Dying is not
the end.
It is crowded
with the voices
of days, all of
them
lost.
Source: Ellroy, James. The Black Dahlia. New York: Mysterious Press, 1987. Print.
Hollywoodland
In my dream, I was
pure.
A movie light,
hypnotic.
The war sweetheart,
waiting.
That was before
this darkness.
The ghosts of
dead women
wait on me,
a queen at last.
The Hollywood ending I
never
wanted.
Source: Ellroy, James. The Black Dahlia. New York: Mysterious Press, 1987. Print.
The Prettiest Star
“What you get is no tomorrow…”---David Bowie, “Fame.”
I thought I could own fame.
Feed it and care for it,
a pet who would love me.
I would sign pictures,
studio shots.
I’d wear fur.
My mother would tell
her friends.
How the camera loves her
echoes down here.
I trace my name on
my autopsy photos,
waiting for a comeback.
Source: Ellroy, James. The Black Dahlia. New York: Mysterious Press, 1987. Print.
Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of four chapbooks, including Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018), and She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016). Her poems and essays have also appeared in LunaLuna Magazine, Thirteen Myna Birds, The Ekphrastic Review, and the RS 500.