Hobbled

Gone are the days
when she could walk on water,
now she stretches out to him
as if begging assistance –
takes him down
in the shallows.

Back then they married very young women.

Fettered to the foreman,
lipsy-tongued,
her womb fills with possums –
his dead children climb her
from the inside.

Wrote to him,
but he was lost on a whaling voyage.

She is reckless
driven away, easy as
sheep from a ditch –
outgrows her lover’s garments
and returns instead to the pockets
of her father’s trousers.

Useless girl
even if you say you felt nothing,
you were touched all the same.

First published in Wicked Alice

Box Talk

The glass is bullet proof, please you must tip the janitor if you require Windex or wipe a spy-hole in the window with spitty hands. Elevatorshaft. Flex. Her ribs: undone. Her toes: hammer-headed flat under screws. Outboardmotor. It was never how they came but what did they did with the fluids that mattered (pocketed spoogy monogrammed handkerchiefs). Sit on the corner chair, hold your breath, swallow a pill to slow things down. No, no mowerblade. Dandelion milk. Finally the Pin Man came, who turned out to be the Pen Man, pushed his face hard against the glass, snotty-sweaty nose, twirling a handful of gutted Bic pens. Churnchurnchurn. The splints are applied without attempting to straighten the bone, poked that pen right up himself, the closest branch in a fall. Redwaterredwaterred. Do you think it hurts do you think it hurts do you think it hurts? Outdoors she is skimming treetops without touching, pulling his jaws apart and breaking him open, anything to die in the bright light, anything to get away from the shadows. Pretend long enough and there is no reason to ever leave. He sits on the other side of the glass, dust motes spin atomically in the air around his penis. Do you want me to stop do you want me to stop to you want me to? Pedestalgrinder. Escalatorteeth. No, go deeper she said. Nothing in these rooms can float.