THE MAD GIRL MEASURES
HER WAIST

each morning
wants to squeeze
into 19 inches
she remembers
Vera Ellen at 99
lbs was that small
and could split and
tap, her satin crotch
damp from spinning
she thinks if she
pares enough away
she can float 
out of reach, a 
Good Year balloon
everyone will get a
stiff neck tracking,
awed at what they
can't bring down 

THE MAD GIRL LOSES
HER VOICE

as if trains ran
over her larynx
splintering verbs and
grinding them into
the dust of the
lodestone in her
dream. It hurts
to do more than
write the words.
Her fingers ache but
she keeps on.
The phone's a gun.
She mouths an SOS
behind frost on 
the stained glass
window letters
leaning up near
the glass are stuck
to, doesn't under
stand when the
blind man doesn't
answer 

THE MAD GIRL DREAMS ARE
LIKE A PETRI DISH

a litmus
or destruction.
Who she was has
been dipped in
bronze she can't
pull away from
from Seattle to
Des Moines. Replicas
are stamped out
now with other
exotic names. Some
times she sees 
it happened fast
as the race to
build nuclear
weapons or the
way some would
cut down all
the Amazon

THE MAD GIRL REMEMBERS
THAT YEAR ALL SHE LOOKED
FORWARD TO WAS
SLEEPING

night was a black
rose unfolding,
the obsidian ring on
tv around JFK
the day she staggered
in itchy green wool
after cops slithered
near, asked did
she want a 
ride. Black to
wrap her like
the velvet coat she
had her mother
had had at
18. Blue black
as bruises flowering
on thighs, soft 
as that night coat or
drugs that gulp
the edges, a lake
of ink gauze, black 
taffeta around the
edges