“Can’t you see I’m a fool”

By LAUREN HILGER

 

I was once in a denim skirt and cowboy hat, spilling milk in a grocery store.
How many songs did I learn to sing I was the fool?
I am a fool. I know I have been a fool—
these are the early future concepts out of which I turned into myself.I watched The Invisible Woman with my mother.
All we knew of her was she was holding brandy
and a cigarette and was naked and invisible.
A blonde nude wherever you were clothed.
What was that time, what with my thin knowledge,
in a catsuit, put out in the cold, in which I found myself on the roof
and off which I almost fell, in those cheap heels and drunk?
In chilly Italy, I put out my arms and a man filled them with roses—
happy birthday! No coat, just the cowboy boots. I would miss my plane home.
It’s unspeakable. I’m asking you to speak it.

Lauren Hilger is the author of Lady Be Good and Morality Play. Named a Nadya Aisenberg Fellow from MacDowell, she has published work in BOMB, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, Pleiades, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for No Tokens.

[Purchase Issue 24 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

“Can’t you see I’m a fool”

Related Posts

beach

“During the Drought,” “Sestina, Mount Mitchill,” “Dragonflies”

LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
”The earth, as blue and green / as a child’s drawing of the earth— // is this what disaster looks like? My love, think / of the dragonflies, each migratory trip / spanning generations. Imagine // that kind of faith: to leave a place behind / knowing a part of you will find its way back, / instinct outweighing desire.

whale sculpture on white background

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation

LISA ASAGI
"We and the whales, / and everyone else, / sleep and wake in bodies / that have a bit of everything / that has ever lived. Forests, oceans, / horse shoe crabs, horses, / orange trees in countless of glasses of juice, / lichen that once grew / on the cliffsides of our ancestors, / deepseated rhizomes, and stars. // Even stars are made

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.