Colette tries — but fails — to publish a single poem. She waits tables and writes dramatic poetry in a notebook she keeps hidden. She once wrote, “I wish to shed my skin like a snake and become someone else.” When the other waitresses find the notebook behind a cutting board, she pretends not to know whose it is. They take turns reading passages in cruel voices. When the notebook finds Colette, she laughs derisively after reading. “Someone’s shit writing,” she says. At that moment she emerges, slithering — cold and wet and new — from her skin.
