girl with diagnosis or gun, #4

Melissa Atkinson Mercer


 

you did a good thing | terribly

took up the death mask
& wanted it | wore it to waltz in the green night | on the other side of town

I did a frantic thing

with such poise | that my heart floated inside my skin like a rotted fish
(when my back cracks closed | I will wander the town | wanting | & no one | will give me |
            even what they do not want themselves)

I mean | we did a brave thing recklessly

wove our boats with the hair of the god of flight & did not try | to swim