Dharma Queens

 

Nail-bitten girls

in chipped red polish
haunt old theaters,
watch cult movies
after midnight.

Their images flash
through the internet:
a dark curl, a knee showing
through shredded jeans,
those nails.

Fingers hold a tool,
a cookie, a petal, a pen.
Offscreen there's the
biker boy/girlfriend,
the drunk mom,
the scholarship,
the trauma.
It all shows in the nails.

In the dark
they sit in the old theaters
wondering
if this is a real broken heart.