Her heart is an Austrian passport, with an American Green Card pinned inside,
Her ears prefer young lovers, Europe’s sweet coffees, liquor by noon,
Her legs went to Mexico during the pandemic and sipped margs by the pool,
Her hands, hustlers, gesticulate around paying the bill.

Even in sleep, her feet never stop tangoing.
On the floor her arms float, sizzle, tangle, 
complicated and magical.

Borges should have written a story about her,
the men that fawn, eager paint splotches drying to one spot,
Her laugh, a horn blast, while she careens out the port.

And though her advice is sometimes a jar of jam
left sitting in the armpit of my fridge,
that laugh splits floorboards, summons the dead.

I hear it curling up to rest in the walls, 
waiting until I need it again.

Demi Anter’s work has been published by Magma, Banshee, Ninth Letter, and others. Her work has also appeared recently in The Times (UK) as a part of Liv Torc’s “Haiflu” project, and aired on BBC Radio London in 2020.