Footloose & fancy
free Stanzie tried to be,
but try trumps free.
In the halls the stream of faces aged & strange
like boysenberries
hung & bursting, she tried
to pick you out, she tried
but there was no you.

There was no me.

In her first year,
In her second year, the locker stuffed with clothes
In her first year, she alone
In her second year, everyone had decorated
In her first year, black piano
In her second year, she dressed
in bones. A little
like stones.

Nomi. Naomi. Dirty girls are going dancing.

he fears he is losing
again stanzie slipping into the mind
of this: logs to stack but trapped
behind a plastic tray picking bugs
from the sky: where is that man
who had the key? why won't he unlock me?

he pictures you, bright in the morning, slipping
dimly into midnight like a sodden sun

not curious any longer, but driven down
his sweet stanzie strange & long forgotten,
standing in the doorway or her shadow
standing, turning round, another scrap of shrapnel
caught in the cyclone.

My baby, he says I looks good, that is all that matters.

I have a pink scarf from the Sheep Farm.

I was a cute bare-nippled blonde girl once, with pigtails.

I was Bridget Jones.

I lolls about, the bridges.

I talk about trolls.

I wonder what fairy tale next will come, picturing horses.

some white writ somebody

slash please this scared

stop sleep simply starved

bathing, blasted, bombed

encrusted excavated thick

with sin simple and its

opposite - faith not virtue

stanzie slipped sat still

rather dared not stand

motioned to the second hand

decided "it is cold"

decided "I am old"

and rather undeserving

silly simpered Stanzie flushed in the neck rock children on ice most delightful shrimp in laugh-land stockinged ladies at the bar maids tinkling mother & son in hockey helmets tipping their chins

awake, half & screaming recognizable voices warn into her left ear:

Follow. Fire.

she wakes then sinks back into cold sweat sleep epileptic or only crazy only blue-veined blanched ripe

cold though the night describing

fresh though the timers keeping

rather kind, rather familiar

lest she forget lest she speak without clearly deciding lest she let her hand slip & recoil, sudden turn of gaze faceless unnamed longing of shadowed dreams, impossible flow & always to bed in some strange hotel, familiar linens, feathered pillows & mattress pads

lest she forget herself, again

the poppies on the cross are contracting, & the stars.  she must draw someone into something, or be stoned.  there is a battle to be won.

oh she was a ridiculous ball of restlessness wrestling less than she should suddenly grabbing his hand across the transmission clinging out of consciousness while he sighs - oh - so that's what I imagined & dreaded, that difficulty, that complication

this then is how it will end

how will it end - in shivers or flames, her burning stomach & cold limbs waking always minutes before the phone rings