Paz with a “Z,” poem by Magdalena Edwards (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

PAZ WITH A “Z”
by Magdalena Edwards

I.

               resent me for being naked

          be pleased that I’m knocked up

                    pay attention to the performance

II.

Even my own sister treats me worse
than somebody would treat a rat.
She actually likes rats, so worse than that.

                    she used to punch my mother’s stomach

She did not want me born.

                    my upbringing has been very destructive

They’re all Scorpios —
my mother, my father and my sister.

III.

Larry Gagosian lived above us.

                    his hot tub would leak into our apartment

It was the ‘80s.

My father

                    had been in the French Foreign Legion

would go up there with a gaucho knife
and confront him —

“Ahhhhh, get your bath fixed!”

IV.

She’s a brilliant actress,
and she’s still getting naked

If I look like that at her age,
I’ll flaunt it

V.

I met Jack at the Roosevelt Hotel
          when I was 19.
Jack kept following me around.
He said to me: “They don’t
make them like you anymore.
I haven’t seen a beautiful girl
like you since 1965.”
I said: “Let’s go make
my boyfriend jealous.”

VI.

My lawyer says
I’m not allowed
to talk about the case.

I so wish I could.

VII.

Yeah. So I went to his recording studio
and I stood in this corner and I felt him.

What can I say? I felt him touch me.
I mean, come on, he’s a ghost.

I felt his spirit go through me
and give me pleasure.

It was like Elvis was tickling me
with a feather.

SOURCE: Andrew Goldman’s New York Times Magazine interview with Paz de la Huerta (July 17, 2011).

IMAGE: Actress Paz de la Huerta by Christian Oth for the New York Times, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Paz de la Huerta is electric. Her performances both on screen (her role as Lucy Danziger in Boardwalk Empire, among many others) and off (her antics are well documented by the celebrity gossip blogs) communicate sexuality and danger. Not long ago, I was walking down 4th Street [in Los Angeles] at a steady clip when I sensed something unusual. I slowed down, looked up, and there she was in a short black coat over a patterned dress, arm in arm with a girlfriend. I don’t think I saw a ghost! Yes, I was scared, and mesmerized.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Magdalena Edwards is an editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Visit her at magdalenaedwards.com.

Author photo by Christian Thomas, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.