Spoiled some people say to those who wear luck 
like a birthmark, toast always landing butter side up, 
x-rays negative, partners faithful 
and fun and fiercely in love. 

I must have been born on the underside of mayhem 
crazy as Patsy, married a man whose greatest ambitions 
were tying a knot in cherry stems with his tongue 
and opening beer cans with his teeth. 

What does anyone know about love? 
That it’s a blue wave, azure sky 
clear as a bell chiming G forever, 
crystalline lake pure and quenching? 

My luck in love’s more like a babbling brook 
that lost its chatter in a drought. 
More like a river reflecting storm clouds and furious 
overhanging branches whipping forty lashes. 

My luck’s a tornado that carries me around, 
thrashes, and sets me down hard, 
muck raked and dust caked amid the rubble 
of everything that ever meant something to me. 

Patsy, why do we do it? 
I’ve got no clue 
but even as you croon Crazy, 
I got my eye on someone new. 

Bio: Lana Hechtman Ayers