Carla Drysdale
Elegy for Leonard Cohen
Tonight the moon leans closer than it’s been since 1948.
You were 14 then and tilted at longing. I wasn’t born yet.
Hey, you missed the election of a fascist in the U.S.A.
You wouldn’t be surprised. You’d write a song for guitar,
of stars and bars, bloody and blue. Guess what
the president-elect says? He agrees with Howard
Stern—that women like me are best in bed because
they were abused as kids. They’re wild
and hungry for love. Shame we never met
but you were shoveling snow at your mountain hut
when I was still a crazy slut willing to be used for love.
Maybe we’ll meet in another life. Say, in half a million
years. Until then we’ll call you up on the Ouija board
and look for you in the next super moon.
Carla Drysdale is the author of the poetry collections Little Venus (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Inheritance (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Spiraling, Public Pool, Cleaver Magazine, PRISM International, The Same, LIT, Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Global City Review, and Literary Mama, among other journals, and in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. In May, 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s annual Earle Birney poetry prize for her poem, “Inheritance.” Born in London, Ontario, she lives with her husband and two sons in Ornex, France. To learn more, visit www.carladrysdale.com.
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