Driving home from baseball camp
the bright blue summer sky
makes everything crisp and clean and warm.

Thoughts drift by like dandelion dust and
disappointment peels from my soul gently:
a tissue lifted from a box.

Nothing is forever
and everything is wonderful.
Just look at the sky.

Doll eyes, he says
You have doll eyes

Of course.

Glassy, blind doll eyes
waiting for any random child to squeeze me to life

Bring me reaction.

My pupils hold tiny negatives of him.
He checks them for impairment.

Sitting side-by-side on a damp porch step
he tells me the story of the spiders

plunging mouth fangs into live, bound captives
melting and digesting their insides
leaving an empty shell
Brittle, used and dead.

Intact from the outside