THE MAD GIRL FEELS
CUT OFF, SEPARATE, ISOLATED

a flying thing
in amber others
think they can
hold up to the
light or show
off or use as
a paper weight.
One love's like
fluorescent light,
pointing up things
she didn't want
to, a glaze, not
a glow for another.
She is a lily wrapped
in ice in the dark
curled into it
self in a dream
of someone to
force her to flower
out of season,
tea roses in
sheets of snow 

THE MAD GIRL HAS
NO VISIBLE MEANS OF SUPPORT

she keeps her
house with
mirrors, her
car is rust,
spray painted
on the hour to
camouflage what
isn't there. No
man's arms wrap
around her, a
brace. Her back
collapses, her
ankles give
like the eaves.
A tooth rots
from inside. Her
mother worries, 
forgets about what
as she runs, like
that race horse
Ruffian, on bloody
ankles, towards
a finish line
always farther away

THE MAD GIRL WAKES UP
AFTER 7 MINUTES OF DALMANE

hears of the 275 lb
guru who suffocated
in a chimney trying
to prove he's Kriss
Kringle as a man
out for a few, rolls
into bed and out
the window after
his mother rearranges
furniture. She cuts
out an article how
adults should get
teddy bears because
we are so alienated,
puts it in a locket
around her neck that
never gets pressed
to her skin by any
one in bed but
herself 

THE MAD GIRL TAKES
A TRANQUILIZER, TWO SLEEPING PILLS,
LIES AND WATCHES
THE CLOCK GO FROM 3 AM TO 4

reindeer collide over
bed posts. She puts on
hiking boots and a fur
coat and crunches out over
the new snow for things
she's lost: blue velvet
scarf, contact lenses.
Tho Dalmane makes a
glaze like a moat even
at 4 AM she can't let go,
pops a few more capsules,
remembers the lost note
in the snow and puts
bare feet into hiking
boots, just nipples under
fur heading out into the
white and stars. Rhine
stones in her hair, she
thinks of the Iranian
nibbling past them on
his way to skin in a room 
over the dancing as the
slinky wool clung to
her still perfect ass