Lipstick

FROM THE ONLINE CHAPBOOK FLAMINGO PARK

Lipstick

Miriam Levine

Each belonging shrouded, secret, bound with cord,

the un-housed woman stalls her packed cart and runs

straight to me—O staring eyes, wild outflung arms.

I know what you feel, I want to say—don’t you see

that Jeep, the skull painted on the window, the florid cursive,

“God’s word in my heart like a burning fire in my bones”? Still,

I don’t know what your fear looks like despite how much you look like me.

And I don’t know what mercy is . . . until I see you’ve made your lips

massive with lipstick, painting over the shape we were born with.

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Flamingo Park
Miriam Levine
2026

Flamingo Park is Miriam Levine’s gift to you. The setting of this online chapbook is the Flamingo Park neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The themes, for the most part, are love, death, joy—laughter and tears—the longstanding themes of lyric poetry.