Liz Dosta

Inside the Room of the Room of John Wayne

A small fire burns.
A red square inside a red square

behind a blue door. A blue
vase cracks. Slowly, water leaks out.

Sometimes, it becomes too dark and one must lean
the blue horse against a field of poppies.

John goes missing from John's thoughts, though
he keeps his wig inside him.

His wig the burned down house he wears,
on a head made of water.

It is blue smoke through a row of redwoods,
fists of raindrops opening.

What love cannot tell us,
when the blue room invades.

Liz Dosta’s work has appeared in Pank, Two Serious Ladies, and The Atlas Review, among other journals. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.