Raggedy Ann Makes a Vow
God, how she
scared me! Immortal: even
now her voice poisons
me from my own
guts: armed with search
warrants she wields fate
like a parking ticket or an enema
nozzle (her red, black-
tipped soapy
breast); and I still am
sick, naked, sucked out un-
done. That child? Why? Who?
Who? All gone down
the potty-O. But her
intestines! Tortured,
cramped, flashing gassy
neon
gall, wormwood, popping
stink-cannons split
the whole house every
a.m. Shit, shut
up, Mommy! Blazing, she
plots presents. O when
the phone rings, I
flinch, and the mailbox-
full of bombs. Then spooks
in the dark, the dark save
us: I will hang
you all cleaned
out on the hook on the back
of the bathroom
door with a red
rubber tubular
rope: and a raped
ghost from the sewer, lady,
a child, drowned, no
one, will write
your name in caca
on your tombstone.
Song
I was all closed, contained,
quiet: widowed but almost
resigned (I had my house, job,
children), a bit
lonely (but no one, not
even I, knew how much):
now, for a voice, a face,
I walk, possessed, in the winter
rain, aching, skewered by dreams,
open, open to the winds-
and all, all for nothing.
