He tells me the story
of an old scar,
how I julienned
the shoulder flesh
before I even knew—
what. a. bitch. I’ve been.
In his murder house, found
underneath
a ratty blanket: rats
and shrink-wrapped hip bones—
he wouldn’t
want a woman
to walk from him
without a limp.
Don’t worry, Nadya says.
Wherever the night went,
it went also.

Sherri sits on a high black limb,
spotlighted,
reading aloud a list
of her wicked doings,
this or that nonesuch—
fruitus bulbous—
Heroine-purple as her mouth,
secreting chains.
Because I want to be so good,
with a machete
true and pewter
as her hair, I hack.
The bads bust open,
split by ground; something
like spell-breath
salts out.
She murdered a man.
Now I can sleep.

It’s your time—
a welcome & unwelcome surprise.
The four-years-old
clinking cascade
of your soda tab collection
onto hardwood
floods. The scatter
I could make sense of,
little things becoming hidden
under the larger so
naturally.
Once, you reached
out to comfort a bat
stuck under your nightstand;
the rabies shots weren’t too bad.
The night holds back its gasp
when I tether you
to the park bench.
Nadya recounts the day her grandfather died:
There are only a few
really terrible sunsets.