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| “Aubade,” 1942 by Pablo Picasso |
So—
(An Aubade for a Woman Lost
So he gave her a pearl handled gun,
its skull and crossbones in a red red rose.
So she packed it moonlighting
driving nights for a ride share.
So she never used it.
So it was used on her.
So he shoved it sideways inside her
mouth smeared bloody with lipstick.
So her temple bore a jewel of a bullet bloom.
So her dark eyes rolled backwards ghastly white.
So she kept on talking: no, oh no, oh no.
So he was a person of interest let go.
So they strung a cardboard toe tag
where she had worn his gold band.
So they put her in the cold bed
silenced in a morgue drawer.
So at daybreak on her birthday, he ate
that same gun, metallic on the tongue,
crying out: no, oh no, oh no.
So it never even made the evening news.
—for Georgeann Eskievich Rettberg
(1952-2003)
She—
(Another Aubade for a Woman Lost)
She, mother of three
in the routine of another day,
shot down driving away
in the Minnesota snow
from ICE officers
mixed and missed dictates.
She, another woman lost,
her wife and observers
in a chorus of fear
calling out
oh no, oh no, oh no.
She, a poet who wrote
of solipsist sunsets,
tercets from cicadas,
that the bible and qur’an
and bhagavad gita…
make room for wonder.
She, now a metaphor
of lilies and lavender,
votives and tea lights
peace signs and queer flags
for what could have been,
what could be for any of us.
She, in a murderous
last rite anointed as fucking bitch
silenced by three bullets,
face awash in blood.
She, reduced
to an endless loop
of twisted narratives
on the news circuits
while women cry out
again and again an endless
oh no, oh no, oh no.
—for Renee Nicole Good
(1989-2026)
Andrena Zawinski is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Born Under the Influence. Her work has been lauded for its appreciation of nature, spirituality, social concern, and craft. Her writing appears widely online and in print, including at Verse Daily. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she has made her home on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay Area.
