Karen Petersen

PERSONA

Dead male body in hotel room
age 23, overdose
with yesterday's tan.
Cheerful coroner,
little black bag,
"This one’s easy."
Hot sun melting
the weeping needle
Parking lot tar,
footprint by the door
the last evidence of life.
This kid was no one
but he had a past,
and dreams
The ticking clock...
all gone by the stillness of noon.


Karen reads "Persona":



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Karen confesses: "This poem was written when I read a small AP news item on the increase in drug overdoses in Miami, and I thought of all those young people whose lives were now over, and forgotten."


KAREN PETERSEN, adventurer, photojournalist and writer, has traveled the world extensively, publishing both nationally and internationally in a variety of publications. Most recently, she was published in The Malpais Review and Antiphon. In 2015, she read "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" at the Yeats Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is currently at work on Four Points on a Compass, a collection of her poems from overseas. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Classics from Vassar College and an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.