Darkness crackles where she’s stood,
a memory in the margin.
Stories tumble on her tongue,
words scurry like leaves
back down her throat, scorch her lungs.
She is lost. Alice is lost.

Left her heels at home,
never the right weather,
sending tears in the mail to twenty addresses,
first class sealed in poppy-red envelopes.
She writes left-handed so they’d never know
it was me.
Vowels loop dreamily
but ooze as un-bandaged wounds
over each vital word, every name
she murmurs so the city can’t hear.

Streets fuse together,
melt into a concrete concoction,
a labyrinth Alice crawls through
until her knees bubble red,
ruby rivers throb in her eyes.
Turning into a zombie,
downed the wrong pills,
now her hands belong to someone else,
do what you like, what you will.

Cranberry Street to the corner of Jay.
Midnight and midday both the same.
Now out come the princes, princesses
feeding their heads, slapping money
on the table, licking wine glasses clean.
Alice finds solace in a streetlamp,
twirls like a ribbon and falls
into another crackling darkness
with no one to call.