The Girl from Nowhere

To: the Houdini Man

From: the Girl From Nowhere

 

And again I’m tracing black holes with a single finger in any bathroom mirror.

            I broke another snow-filled-sun-down porch with

        a fever. Flailing as the slats combusted in slow-mo, your pre-prohibition

tusk Voodoo (the one you widdled my last name into) hung against my throat like 

          a clavicle. Some things are immune to gravity. I couldn’t help imagine life inside

 

a snow globe to be something like Purgatory.

      

     You were the shaker, booty quake thrust. You were always busy

                 balancing cheap beer on your chin-beard, and when you drippled

     I’d cup the drool with my hands, put it in a pitcher--save the taste for

           when we missed it.

 

I use boys like books. I need action to resolve things. Busy waiting for a

                serious accident to appreciate this cigarette, I tap my heel

    to the sound of alley honks and dumpster lids and give fantasy an unfair advantage.

          

When the city feels too big for

              me, I rock in a rocker and smoke with my eyes

      closed until I’m comfortable in the dark. 

And I unpack my backpack and I re-pack my pack and

        repeat again. I now know comforters for what they are: cover overs for

   

        sex, itchy and heavy, permeable shields. Admit it, you invented the signs,

 

the twists and horizontal stamps of sleeplessness; the suicidal wish to make your

      junk disappear, junk and the armless hugs and funny- bone convos with

    local heroes at the pub we call Church. Road signs shine like

 

God in the dark. I’m going nowhere again. Leave

            parchment in bottles and stick your initials in cement.

           

  I’ll track stories of your whereabouts, like my Grandmother, the Native. Bar

   flies and ripped coasters--Again I’m feeding on

          your trail, satiating necessity with misdemeanors and giggles. Remember that time

     we sat Indian-style in the deep-end of the pool? Did you pretend to sip the tea

  for sustenance or because you weren’t afraid to drown?