A young girl,
Face pressed against the glass
‘You’re too young to go in there.
You’re not allowed past.
You must wait outside and do no more than look in.’
But the glass is shattered,
it impedes my vision
And the shards tear through my skin.

The picture is too broken to see what went on,
Smeared blood obscuring where the damage came from.
I can see a clock on the wall,
Time is frozen
But the big hand points to you -
I can just make out you’re all there.

I scream
I bang
I cry for you.
I wound myself further in the confusion,
And when you finally look up from the confines you’re in
There is no movement.
Just a distant sign for me that says
‘stay strong’
I don’t understand what’s going on,
Strong for what, for who?
Why can’t I come in there with you?
Please someone tell me what’s happening.

I’m bleeding; you’re all bleeding,
But still I don’t know why.
Old enough to know the colours,
but too young for where they came from.
Close enough to hear the screaming,
too far from the cries.
Too young,
Too young.
Not young enough.

You were all on the hour and I am frozen at six,
the little hand
Behind that pain spattered pane that splintered my heart.

All of your blood was spilt too,
Just on the inside of the glass
By the clock in that room where you all were together,
That I was allowed to see,
but not to touch.
I wanted in,
but there was no choice,
My blood had to stay on the outside with the dust.

The moon is bright tonight;
my bedroom window faces south.
I wonder if you can see the same moon as me
as it sits in the sky’s wide mouth.

Nine hundred miles of road
and thousands of acres of stars.
Somewhere, you’re sleeping on your own,
unaware of my voice in the dark.

she wrote an entire novel
about a man who cut his hand
on a can of sardines

he found in a silent cupboard
of a prairie house abandoned since
the dust bowl, or perhaps since
the eighth day of creation

the can he opened with a rusty blade
he found in yet another home of ghosts
on a treeless lane in Topeka

where he spent
four naked nights
hiding from the cruelest January,
his memories, and the devil

who his mama said eschewed the cold
and he believed her, but built a fire all the same
until a fat ****** sheriff came
and sent him into the night

where a wailing wind waited
and blew him south through the dark
like just another tumbleweed

when he finally
landed, dry and thrashed
in his new sagging palace
the snows had melted,
the winds calmed

there he found fine fodder
in a tin with sailor standing proud
a feast of fish at his feet

was a shame to behead
the mariner with such a dull tool
only to find mush and ancient fetor
anointed by three drops of his red blood
the can demanded in exchange
for its long dead bounty

She will smash
every wine glass,
they are broken
but not her heart.

She will walk barefoot
from room to room
while her feet are bleeding,
but not her heart.

She will drink him up
until her body aches
and her head hurts,
but not her heart.