harm

Soon, the objects nearest the house begin to crumple like bows, putting back their shapes. Singing the dead from their drawers. The white from our sheets. Soon, even the cats won’t sleep. Night, a girl falling through trees. A chair fastened to the floor. Before the wreck, I wear a checked dress and talk about poison, deux ex machina. My hair medicinal, written. Bloodstains when he looked for me on the car seat, the good sheets. When he came for me with the kitchen knife, trampling the azaleas. The devil in me when I swooned in the root cellar, where I tried to keep it, couldn’t feed it. Til it had sang the town to ruins. Til it had sewn the sky into a slit.