Strange Fruit

This grief, it's what's most accessible. We hide in the morning in cat trees and thicket. Play possum in the ammunition field. The dawn grown bruised and soft like a plum. This sweet contagion, how I wear it on my glossed lips, my powdered dress. The white Mary Jane's that are never quite white. At dusk we scream bloody murder in the graves. Twist our bodies in the swings till we can't breathe. Our pockets jumbled with bones and crumpled school schedules. My mouth tasting of chocolate and a boy's heated breath. We're not quite innocent, not quite right, play light as a feather stiff as a board in the mausoleum. My bra filled with tissues and tiny rocks. We'll look for the ghost of the missing girl in the well, our screams echoing. In the morning we'll never remember. Never speak a word. By night, the scent of blood on our fingers, our mothers' voices inside our heads to carry us home.