The selfish unawareness
of a window painted blue,
and electric lights that won’t reflect
but sound so clearly overdue.
It permeates the smell of sanitation
and of jaundice under skin that
has been peeled away by saline
soldiers crawling on their knees
across a bridge of gathered lives;
maybe this time,
she’ll sound so
much better in this sweater than this dress
that leaves her back exposed
so all the coldest air can make a nest.
All the stabbing, all the dripping,
all the fevers and the cries, and the
poorly picked out tiles on the wall
have watched a million maidens die
underneath electric lights.
She’s so
mixed up like metaphors;
it’s better for her. So
when all the shallow echoes
fall and settle in her cheeks,
she’s still demanding
all that I can V.