After
Blistered fingerprints tell all they can: the story of a girl with golden hair too long for her skinny legs, still those knobby knees, a frill of torn lace tucked in the bottom of her jacket, and a run like the wind.
i wuz here, but now i'm gone
the breeze says, slow down, but she won't listen. she's afraid of what might not catch up to her.
Jumps at the sound of the magpie, a brisk harsh bray in the twilight air. sees the chalk marks on the pavement which spell out messages, dire warnings to loved ones:
don't step on a cra-aack you'll break your mother's ba-aack
Hears the call of others jumping the rest of the day away, the soft thrum, thrum of the green electrical box beside the neighbor's hedge:
m - i - s - s - i - s - s - i....
can't tell the secret when she comes in. the aroma enveloping her, summer fresh hair, chafed thighs.
shhhh
Daddy didn't want me
lipid
dissolved
steak fires burning
no daily lean
weight machine
paid weekly for upgrades
spent hard cash on cable
never really
left, just closed the door
pretended
all along
right there
beside
seeing everything
hearing it all
burning:
pyre
smoldering
bones
8-year old girls mean trouble
pretend you didn't see us
slipping wild
through french doors
out the bedroom
Funeral
when you pull
the face torn
day just seems to repeat itself
over and over
and over
and the way you say
i didn't know
what i heard was
not the song of finches
or the trilling
of waxwings
in winter
but ashes.