THE MAD GIRL WONDERS
IF SHE SHOULD PUT HER BLOOD ON ICE,
KEEP IT IN HER CAR

in case. Dreams about
the man who might
exist. She runs
into concrete as she
was trying to 
get behind his
blue lake eyes,
skids and crashes,
metal tearing
pieces of herself
from what held
the way his "pretty
lady" did. Now 
he leans against
her guava silk in
the kitchen, the
coffee too cool,
all that was but not
all that would be 

THE MAD GIRL THINKS NOW
SHE SHOULD HAVE MADE MORE CONTACTS

even with the fat
lecher who grabbed
17 year old women's
skin as Colorado
winds blew hikers
off cliffs, dorm
rooms shut. Maybe
she should have
leaped to New York 
City invitations
like a dolphin to
bits of fish in
stead of letting
the dark walnuts
braid their hair to
the house, just touch
other poets on the
sheets of paper, a
sleep walker moving
by touch as if
blind as she now
feels she was 

THE MAD GIRL FEELS
SO OUTSIDE THINGS

like someone who sees
lights go on in 
other people's houses,
hears laughing under
a door a night she's
cold in a bed alone.
All the others have
gone to the movies.
What could warm 
her out of reach as
her mother's arms
to the two year old
who slipped out of
the house on Xmas
Eve as her parents
were getting out the
wrapped gifts, her
tracks in the snow
where they found her
like the last words
someone leaves in a
bottle as the ship
goes down 

THE MAD GIRL, SOMEWHERE
IN A HOUSE CAMOUFLAGED
BY BRANCHES

dreams her toes
melt in the box
of toe shoes
like a body 
crumbling in a
coffin. Ants
fall from walnuts
into mounds of
Quilt. If her
fingernails were
longer she could
crush what she
couldn't hold
on to, lips she
forgets the
taste of as if
everything in
her was an eye
clouding over