By Christine Fort

Sounds pretty, seems implausible.
Dumb girl waits for bastard
on the subway platform—where

does he get off? At any other
stop, you know this sound
ain’t Rattlesnakes, you write it off

as shit, but in the thick tar
where you are, the backbeat catches
in your throat. Your lover

liked this album till you did, left
its white shell in your room. “It’s
accessible,” he said as you crossed

that awful bridge. A little starlight
if not honey. You sing along enough,
you’ll start to get the fact you’ll

let a clear-voiced man fool you:
a boyish good-for-nothing’s good
for crying. Good for driving too.

Christine Fort (MFA ’04) writes music reviews for the online journal Caught in the Carousel. She lives in the Boston area, where she works as an intellectual property practice systems specialist. The Negatives is the name of an album by Lloyd Cole.