She could live on chips on paint chips potato chips the poker chips he stacked in towers on the nightstand she could live in glass or underground or in his Cadillac she lived inside his head his cowboy boots she found a scorpion in once stabbed him in the shoulder by mistake he called her lucky charm called her witch made her practice in a walk-in closet how to cast a spell draw fortune how to make herself more pretty she dreamed she buried the brother she didn’t have dreamed her brother was dwarfed he died when her father called her pet he died when her father left she learned to live in the parking lot alone outside the casino learned to live at the bar by the pool tables theatres where men shot men raped women shot women shot themselves skinned animals ran one another over and over she learned to live in his smoke his vodka his idea of perfection the perfect girl the perfect evening unencumbered by her needs she dreamed of being buried on her knees her knees are plum so cute and sore so sturdy the father is dying now the girl is grown she dances with knives in her panties the men love her knives she loves the mistakes she makes the knives are her father the men are her father the panties are wool are sheep she dances in sheep with knives she strips off the sheep and for a moment feels her flesh at peace with her flesh she almost puts away the knives almost lets the men lose interest there is still so much work to do …
Robin Richardson
A thing stolen say a spoon say gone before morning shook or worse unable to reorient a slip of the wrist and you’re married the spoon is small is decorative the length one walks back to oneself a shadow’s length or less a belief in one or other end reflects the particulars of one or other neurosis my caldera my Zika my bug-out in a camo pick-up still as damn now nothing happened say the spoon means jack the marriage too say a container is a ritual the spoon which is your bath your mirror is saving your life or more with earned misfortune still a house is not yours a body a personality the collection of traits the fear of heights of Zika the boy with his screen the game with its gun the bath with its salt the outer layer stripped and like an iris shrinking in the light of yet another the trick is not to mind the slanted rain the lack of sleep his screen the light of screens their shelter the shelter is not yours the marriage with its many utensils is silver in the same way love is sheer is tugging at your sleeve there was a plan a bunker the love-thing barely walking to a garden to a den of rifles with a knack for game a river say twice the width of home and gold and rising say it floods the rooms which are not yours the love-thing say the ritual of bathing does you good the thing beyond the body which is you is peeled back and massive barely anything at all the bucket you were dropped in the river the swallowing of itself in infinite configuration infinitely frayed the boy is you the man the screen with its various positions its many worshippers which are you say nothing really happened not the end the spoon the house with its ammo was a game the game of angels which are you …
Figured marry for money the stainlessness of it …