It's midnight and the only two people

in the green house are watching

Tarantino films, the blood on the screen

screaming "Get down!"

The house shakes its roof

doubtfully because the couple

should go to sleep instead of arguing

about who's the best director,

and is Tarantino cool or only a wannabe,

and is the dialogue brutal or brilliant,

and does he hate women and why all the torture.

These two haven't been to bed together yet,

thinks the Queen Anne rehab, and the films

are Hollywood sellouts, some with comic thugs,

others with magic swords. The house has seen

scores of kitchen knives that cut scars

into its hardwood floors,

and it prefers soft moans

from non-Tarantino women like this one

who aren't whores

and non-Tarantino men like this one

who aren't macho—

simple oh's and ah's

that give the house a bath,

no matter that you can't erase the past.

And by the time the Tarantino phase declines,

we'll be bickering about the next hip director

who shows us blow by blow

what's wrong with us,

without our ever wanting to know.

 

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Eileen Murphy was born in Chicago and educated at New College, Sarasota (BA), and Columbia College, Chicago (MA). She teaches English and literature at Polk State College (Winter Haven/Lakeland, Florida) and has published poetry in a number of journals including The Kerf, Mudfish, and poetry/memoir/story.