The Girls


As our reward, she cut for the girls the nervous ribbon.
The figurines nearby filled with food the girls didn’t want.
And the tire in the stream and the shoe hidden
inside the tire and the sludge hidden inside the shoe.
To make a home for the girls in the fern-forest where the brambles arched.
And stickers of the animals.

She read to the girls and the girls behind the outhouse
burying our talents. Slits
in the ground, the vent
closing up Venetian. Valved.
The crayoned Valentines filed in the slot machine.
Behind the warping
and the poison red berries from the hedge.
And the girl-song written by the girls.

She was handing out the flashlights and the batteries, then the stranger
loves the girls more.
The air so stiff, stream-clogged.
He gives the girls the guns to choose, which girl of
which of you, the girls with the guns against each the other’s girl-heart.
I was standing by her first, then the stranger
loves my sister more. My sister with the gun against my heart.
Only the birds eat these berries, not the girls.
Only the birds with their mouths smeared red, with their bird-mouths        puckered.
The birds fill their mouths.



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