THE MAD GIRL WAKES UP,
FORSYTHIA EXPLODING
IN DARKNESS

darkness explodes
in her, shoves
its elbows against
her belly. The moon
washes the red from
her hair, eats nails
from her toes. A 
dark branch like a
claw scrapes sleep
like pieces of the
ballet barre sticking
to her fingers when
she clutches what's
metal, words like
shrapnel, like some
one having a leg
sawed off on the
battle field with
no anesthesia
chewing a bullet 

THE MAD GIRL'S
NOT SURE

how to write her last
words in the note
book it's the last
page in, goes
back to the poem
four pages before and
reads "the mad girl
can't deal with
competition," as
"with carpenters" and
knows that couldn't
be true, having
wanted so many guitar
players, men who
could use their 
hands to wood
sing, could use
fingers, not to tear
or rip or bruise
but build something 
she could live in, 
lie down in and
feel safe,
not that the floor
could slide a
way or the wood
rot where she steps 

THE MAD GIRL DREAMS
SHE'S
ALLERGIC TO CORDUROY

to anything that
would come between
her and what she'd
want to touch.
Glass slams
her wrists as she
goes toward a
lover like the
lies she's told
too well

THE MAD GIRL WALKS
BAREFOOT UNDER DRIPPING
BRANCHES, ON A MORNING AFTER
DREAMS OF RELATIVES DYING

the light
lemon and silver.
She stumbles, drowns
in the tree's
brown stars. Tiger
lilies come too soon.
Dead plum branches
like fish net a
flesh sky spills thru
from a car that
smells of gone
cats, worn
ballet slippers. She
slams down route 7,
colorless except for
the sQuirrel, 
persimmon streak
of fur and entrails
torn as her thumbs