I was told it was a
waiting room.
The white or the
black, time would
decide.
A woman sat next to me.
Blonde and dead, wearing
a dress she’d
borrowed from me. Black
velvet; my sister.
She tells me she’s
filled with secrets.
I understand. I
tell her that
sometimes, my
arms bend back.
We nod. We
both know how
we got here.
We wait our
turn.
Sources: Ellroy, James. The Black Dahlia. New York: Mysterious Press, 1987. Print; Mark Frost and David Lynch, “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer,” Twin Peaks, Season One, Episode Three, 1990.
Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of seven chapbooks, including How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, 2018) and Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018.) Her work has appeared in Five 2 One's The Sideshow, Memoir Mixtapes, Calamus, and the RS 500.