Songs for Lost Girls #1

(written for Madame Lavender's "Pick a List II" competition)



After the coffee and donuts,
the glass of chardonnay,
he’ll push her beneath the ocean.
Make her breathe mouthfuls
of black briny water, or cotton,
or mothballs. Macabre sonatas
will rasp from her lungs. Memories
like bubbles will surface,
a playground with a chain link fence,
shadows of jump-ropers on concrete.
An armadillo mashed to pulp
on I.H. 10. All the fathers and sons
will try to hook her with fishing poles.
She knows in Moscow.the girls
are always sad or cold or crying.
Her pure-white sneakers kicking
at dust, slicking into fins. Her bones
all chalk sticks and toothpick castles
as he holds her under. The sound
she makes as she slips quietly
beneath the shimmering dark.