–Author’s Note:  Many years ago, I wrote a poem of the same title that got lost to the world.  This is an attempt at a new version.  It’s inspired by the poem “The Heart” by Stephen Crane (which is a fantastically underrated poem in itself).  This is still very much in draft, but I’m curious to what others think.  In any case, thanks for reading.  This one is still rough but has potential (and the lines in quote are from Crane’s original poem).

stephen as a lady
(after stephen crane)

it starts with an image
and once again it’s stephen crane
and once again he’s on
the same riddle of a battlefield,
wearing a white dress stained
with dirt and blood and
stray instances of turpentine
even though you want
to imagine oak or cedar.
so he’s there, huddled
in the denouement
of your third draft
of heartbreak, slapping
at two stanzas
of lust and beasts.
he’s a woman you
have loved, he’s
quoting himself in
her eyeshadow and
rolling up
the stockings you
once ripped open
with your teeth. he’s
stuck in the middle of
your image that
started this story,
his words stitching
themselves together
out of our her
lips. he is smearing lipstick
onto stubble, garbling over
the perfection of her hips.
stephen crane is quoting
himself or is it her, was he
that fair-haired when he
slaked the thirst
of his virtue
with her gathered tears?
or did her hair crimson its way
into your throat, its strands
twisting the words around
his vocal cords? “it’s bitter, bitter,”
he says of his heart
and you are left in repose
studying the stillness
of your own passage.