Stripes inch through your spine
With the twist of a hula hoop
As it kinks disk by disk towards
A surface, stoic even
To a flimsy ballerina.
Your figure droops into the
Dirt so far that I doubt my
Tylenol on your throat could
Bring back our memories of lights
Passing beside me, between
This audience to thaw
Before your stage, your throne.
It’s your femur that first slides
To a crack with rifles
Left about a lawn of cement
In the debris of this city.
I get sick with a lone
Pigeon at the sight of you.
Should I call for salt pools
To fill my eyes instead?
You may be rattling in this
Winter but I still can’t—
Not since you slit the flair
Of our ribbons in the throat.
I know that was before your
Knuckles, ten of twenty in this
Lake of vodka, bled
From falling into
Metal on the floor.
But I won’t forget mom’s voice
Saying you’d bring cash from
The glamour and noise
Of a ninety degree day,
The same day you left—
Prodigal daughter to a family of
Bones the year she danced home.
