Olivia
Hussey’s
sugar
poisoned
hope
for
Zeffirelli’s
nimble
suicides
I woke
dark air
in Mother’s
tattered
studio
bathroom light
caress my
kindergarten
skin
the landlord’s
library
Juliet
rhetorical
are you
a virgin
undressing
Romeo
the last
my first
undying
trope
musical
figurine
your
fifth
floor
walk
up
angry
sibling
my mother’s
Frank Street
rooms
About the Poem
A Los Angeles county judge has dismissed a lawsuit in which Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film, Romeo and Juliet, is mischaracterized as exploitation. Childhood memories of the film – my first exposure to a Shakespeare play – have been resurrected. After watching the Zeffirelli production with my newly single mother I was transformed, sensitized. The world looked different to me.
About the Author
Tracy Quan is a contributor to Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry and the author of the bestselling novel Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. Her poems have been published by Love’s Executive Order, Los Angeles Review of Books, Newest York, Poets Reading the News, and Topical Poetry. She also serves as a juror for the New York City Book Awards.