Julia Spriggs is at Northwestern University and can be reached at docmarten3@aol.com.



Victory and the Ketchup girl


Tasting the bitter sweet taste
of victory
hard to describe
like gulging a Guiness
so I'm told

Or so says she
the one over there
eating her pile of ketchup
she says it's a new diet
I say screw the diet
while ordering the fried tofu with peanut sauce
Caeser salad with no bacon and extra ranch
and a glass of white wine
After all, I'm vegetarian.

Going home
Plop down on the coach
Hear the gentle moans
of the people living next door
Thinking of going over there and tell them
people are trying to sleep

Then Felix jumps on the bed
meowing, probably because he couldn't go out
stuck with me, while thinking
Thinking...

The ketchup girl
or so I now call her
Since she ate all the ketchup I had
Ironically trying to eat it with a knife and fork
Starving herself to be a model
She says she's not
because she can eat ketchup
and Ronald Reagan classified it
as a vegetable

I say that's sick
and can no longer look at ketchup
But she says it's worth it
I say it's crazy
She says she gets attention
I say that attention isn't always good
She says she has lots of dates
I say it's only because of her body,
and not because of her mind
And she acknowledges it's true
But it's also true for me
Knowing of a recent affair
With a certain college professor
And I also acknowledge it
and conclude it's true
we are both bad

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