Content warning:
Remember last thursday
You pushed M down into the gravel
Beneath the swingset
And she skinned her knee?
M didn’t wail that day
Not like the first
When your mama said it was ‘cause you liked her
But got to her feet
And tackled little laughing adorable you
So hard your pebble-dented elbows
Bruised for a week
This is like that.
She has outdone herself again, the Child
Say the torn sigils
Tangled in bones on the lawn.
All of willow ave is a poem
The residents, sacrifices
Forward cries gargle in bursting throats
Screams and lyrics to the ice cream truck's jingle
warped and blaring from where it crashed
into the community's wrought-iron gate
All part of your song.
She started this war for you, you know
The boy who taught Death
Romantic gestures have their roots
In violence.
Synchronized sprinklers run crimson
Rivulets into pristine gutters
Like ribbons wrapping lovers' gifts.
An SUV
door ajar
Explodes like burning passion
Like fireworks in the kisses
she's heard so much about
She waits for one
in the cul-de-sac
Fidgeting between the Millers' and Greens' mailboxes
All dark hair and sparkling eyes
A pretty dress with butterflies on it
And in her stomach
Worried this wasn't enough
Best get on with it.