Dishonored
by Catherine Gonick Catherine Gonick

Catherine Gonick's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Boston Review, Pivot, Crack the Spine, Ginosko, Word Riot, and Sukoon. She was awarded the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Prize for Poetry, as an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, and completed an MA in creative writing at the City University of New York. She is the author of produced plays and was a finalist in the National Ten-Minute Play Contest with the Actors Theatre of Louisville. As part of a startup company that turns organic waste into energy through green technology, she divides her time between New York and California, with occasional trips to Europe and the Middle East.

A man is in the right for being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.
—Simone de Beauvoir

wrong she is wronged
wronged she wrongs

desire becomes her secret crime
crime her secret desire

the future forbidden
can only lead back
to the more forbidden past

she longs for the knock of herself
daily on her front door

a bee that stings itself
a vulture that feasts
on its own liver


What do you think? Please send us your comments, including the name of the work you are commenting on.
Permalink to the Amarillo Bay issue containing this work.