The Virgin's Got Her Bachelors, Even
A girl is error's last peak. A nicked bit
of Thank you, Jesus
you have no right to relinquish. The plastic fissure
down her left side coagulates like privacy.
What have you done? Feeling licks its claws too early to take bets.
Graphic constellations of decay decorate
her wax-white gown,
spattered blood or shattered insect bits
mark a loose trail—
strewn evidence of a snapped path you've got half a mind to.
Gangly dahlias pause, lean in prayer
toward the half shrug her shoulder suggests and then
takes back. Tomorrow a bride will rise
exactly toward you. But first take this
girl's shriveled twist, her baby cord
reliquary, the pink box
promissory in its glittering sequins. Consider its ways
fixed to the shifting air.
A high-tension wire slices overhead into wind and wind
while paternal clouds retract for safety hooks.
A girl dreams in blank, liquid halls, with boot-whacked particle board
underfoot. On evidence:
clear plastic wrappers for fire-resistant flowers that rest
in her cupped palm. Or how one raised finger
suggests a filigreed branch, hooks a china mug
swinging to her ear. The swing says
"she, she." She saw. And she obliges:
facing Never, unbuttoning her coat, oblivious, tight.
Let's realign her silks with the fan. Let the fan issue her
a new straw lair.
Tumble back, claw. You puppet about her visible shape.
Train midnight on duskier engines, OK? Retract
to what you want someone to see. A caw
traces her contents. Fills in.
A brief reprieve
from the work. A girl's nostrils alight
at the hole she saw in you. She wouldn't,
astonishes. She tries it.
