Francesca

for Francesca Woodman

One day the neighbors abandoned
all the windows, swallowing shoes,
fingers, and I didn’t dream.
The seamen with leather faces
pull women’s bodies from shore,
my mother’s waxen head floating
like an eye. That beautiful
suffocation. I am forever chasing
the woman in the wallpaper,
aching to brush her gray, knotted
hair. In my jeans pockets errant
objects rattle. Black-room
ballerinas, dirty girls. Puppet
girls. Butter knives and broken
light bulbs. They form poltergeists
and scream at the top of their
lungs. I pull from the fountain
lost cameos and puzzle pieces.
We are all fishing hooks and
antique pill cases. How the longing
to carve it into beautiful words
was equal to the hunger. Holding
hands by our pinkies, we were lost
children sneaking like worms
through the mirror-land.