She was a child wild
wearing a white dress,
galloping through fields of unrest,
inspiring anxious warheads,
for a hot second.

Off to the next.

She was
anxious like a feather
caught in a breeze,
far from that child
that minded none
the weeds.

Backhand compliments
more potent than
misogynic critiques.
She was Marilyn Monroe.

Where was Norma Jean?

Living in a man's dream,
pinned up in a
concrete bunker,
a porcelain poster
tearing each time
she wasn't taken seriously,
or spent nights
alone aside a dusty phone,
with no home but
Norma Jean,
Marilyn's martyr
long at peace.