THE MAD GIRL CLOSES
THE SHUTTERS ON FRIDAY

in blue light
her arms wrap
around herself
so it looks as
if somebody was
holding her.
Muslin covers
her blisters,
belladonna and
222 on her tongue
blur the badly
tuned tv that
will dissolve in
the sundial like
someone who wants
heave to be
like this 

THE MAD GIRL WANTS
TO GET UP EARLY

walk in the raspberries,
taste green light on
her skin, stillness
pulling the hair
from her neck, from
her shoulders and
rubbing where his
fingers had pressed
then poked and pulled
so her blood couldn't
snap back, keep being 
so elastic. She's
shaking as jade
light loses
its newness and
jeweled grass
goes straw 

THE MAD GIRL WAKES

She feels licorice
feathers when she
tries to talk, an
obsidian thorn for
the man who said she
failed then said
she flailed (whose
daughter over avocados
rye bread and cheese
said he never cared
for anything living)
sticks thru her
throat, spears her
to metal, slick 
and hard as he can
be

THE MAD GIRL FORCES HERSELF
TO DO WHAT'S ORDINARY TO GET THRU BUT
THEN THE SMALLEST THING TEARS
A HOLE IN THURSDAY

like a bull goring
a tear deep thru her
heart just as she thought
she'd stepped on dry
land from a boat
sinking. Something
in her is a G.I. about
to celebrate the
end of the war who
jumps up to run to a 
friend who's slithered
back covered with
ashes but smiling
then leaps on a mine.
She feels parts of her
smashed dreams float
up over the walnuts
as if the moon was
sucking on them,
remembers the myth of
the sister pulled
to the moon who then
was never free from
a lust for suicide