More Famous Than Andy Warhol, by Willa Carroll

Self Portrait in Drag, photograph by Andy Warhol (USA) 1981.

More Famous Than Andy Warhol
​
Crowned Miss Sweden in '61,
my mother-in-law won fame
with a shaving cream commercial.
In black & white, her platinum locks
tickle naked shoulders, bare
except for a pearl necklace.
Take it off, take it all off––
with Noxzema!
 
New York party-hopping in '67,
she held court with Andy Warhol,
It was no big deal meeting Andy Warhol,
I was a bigger star than Andy Warhol.
 
Off-camera she smoked endless
Virginia Slims, ordered Absolut
for lunch, Straight up in a pint glass!
Don't bother bringing water,
I don’t drink water because
fish fuck in it.
 
Warhol’s face in Time, hers in Life.
Warhol shot, meat of his heart massaged,
saved. Her postcard from a prison inmate,
Send me a Polaroid of you wearing
nothing but red pumps.

Willa Carroll

Willa Carroll is the author of Nerve Chorus, one of Entropy Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2018. A finalist for The Georgia Poetry Prize, she was the winner of Tupelo Quarterly’s TQ7 Poetry Prize and Narrative Magazine’s Third Annual Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, LARB Quarterly Journal, The Rumpus, Tin House, and elsewhere. Video readings of her poems were featured in Narrative Outloud. A former experimental dancer and actor, she has collaborated with numerous artists, including text-based projects with her filmmaker husband. She lives in NYC.  willacarroll.com