The Great Gatsby Breaks My Heart

It isn’t the way he stares
over the black satin sound
nor his unshakable belief
in the dock light.

I thought it was the impossible way
he loves her, but it isn’t that either;
we all know she was built only
of silver and gold.

It’s the pool, his blood in the water,
thin circle of red against the current;
the moment there isn’t any green left,
that’s when I break.

Copyright © Dorothy Doyle Mienko • Selection from Sundress Publications • All rights reserved.
Painting: “The Butterfly Couple” by J. C. Leyendecker, 1923.