Nicola Maye Goldberg

ROMEO VS. JULIET



at your wife’s birthday party

I fell down the stairs

& stayed there forever







HALLELUJAH


I want to write a poem

that will make you


love me. Something


so good


that when your wife reads it,

she’ll be like – yeah,


I get it. No hard feelings.


Maybe Leonard Cohen

would understand me.


I wish I cared


about anything

besides love. Like money


or justice or

music or time.


The world is so full

of beautiful women but

I am not


one of them. I am a

green ribbon. I am a slit throat.

Nicola Maye Goldberg is the author of Other Women (Sad Spell Press) and Nothing Can Hurt You (Bloomsbury). She lives in New York City.