Jailbait at fourteen, my friends, the older
boys driving me around town, a cool Camaro,
or engine red MG, roof down, gawking
at this world giddy and wild. Running
away from my strange room, bare-
walled, but for one poster from The
British Museum tacked into dry
wall; Rodin’s pillar of marble, Camille
Claudel contrapposto on her pedestal,
her face turned down, away from me,
rippling her spine to a backdrop of gray,
a dusty crumpled mess, rumpled duvet,
empty hangers hooked into a broken web
my clothes snagged on it, discarded shells.

PHOTO Heidi Joffe(M.Ed.) is a poet and multimedia artist who crafts with fibers, clay, and words. She writes essays and screenplays, but poetry is her sustenance. Her publication homes include Panoply, The Opiate, Sheila Na-Gig, Gyroscope, Pine, Mountain Sand and Gravel. She is currently completing an MFA at Pacific University.