[they shared her on a chicken white sheet]
It’s no wonder I’m
always tired with all these tract houses—
It’s
night & cold
on my belly in the
undeveloped field now
I
have to bury her
clothing inside a black garbage bag in plot D
police cars roll past but continue down the treeless parkway
even
after shining
their lights on me in my too-small sundress
I can only assume
they don’t see the significance of my presence
but I must say 1994 is a simpler time—not everyone is suspect
I crawl up next to
my old house & look through a lit window
my mother reads
a book in bed I want to knock on
the glass, there’s something
I
need to tell her
and called her
winter who
once was a soprano II
but moved to
of her ankle tattoo
made a sound like
filigree in fresh
powder when
they ratcheted her up
to their level and
one boy said you
see this?
and the other said
can it dance? what with her whorl
of black egg
hair she’s ductile as a shoat
no sleigh of
hoarfrost on the swiss sloped roof
and the sweetest
thing was she wasn’t
full
of parting shot and
at least they still had her
pom socks to look forward to that’s one thing
about swing dancers
and tell your rapist I
would like a roast nectarine
spilled from the rucksack
at the mouth of an oak
where every girl is
naked & black in the gaslight
or to compare his
close prick to a leaking faucet
or the face of a
fingered nickel, or if in the full
center of the puget sound could he please just
put the plank out
& let you step off the ferry’s
clean side unimpeded to
say I am nothing but
sonar in february’s rimy trench or come tusk
to tusk with the
elephant iced to the bottom
of the sea or the
platform you step off in
for the perianth light of this violent thing you
say you don’t want to
lick beneath his jackboot