the nail polishes all look like death
when they perch like that
demented birds, ripped beaks,
snickering at me like tombstones.
i told my mother to teach me
how to apply my lipstick
and she did.
i was pretty
and new.
i was painted
just. 	for. 	you.
i mop 
	and sweep
			and bake
					you a pie.
and don’t i look like death
doing it?

Cat Duffy is a twenty-year-old majoring in Photography and Video at SVA. She was raised in a Gorham, Maine (aka the middle of nowhere) where she read Sylvia Plath and Sherwood Anderson and planned her escape to New York City.