On The Morning of Jeffrey Epstein’s Death by Kristin Garth

I’m mourning in a coffee shop not some

billionaire pedophile but once again

myself — how essential this becomes

to mental health, the remembering when

I was someone else — small enough to be

controlled, cajoled — processing 46 years

old, Saturdays in coffee shops, chai tea

complimentary cake pops, quite often tears

I hope no one will see.  Poetry

is therapy where I speak of what he did to

me — not Epstein, someone like him I seethe

about with pastel pens — such tears accrued

last weekend a barista asked to pray

with me.  Have no tears for the dead today.