There’s an attic where we practice magic tricks.
A newspaper article: Flood, 1984, covers
one nude light bulb. Our bare arms make shapes
like: owl, petrol, pumpkin seed. We’re etchings
of women on Greek vases, plump limbs tapering.
Light gets into hair and sticks there.
A broken axle lies on a crate, we call it a table.
Our eyelids are textured like someone froze us
and molded their wrinkled lips onto our skin.
A few splinters get into my feet. Our breasts swell,
we begin to burn behind the navel.
An uneven rhythm we make our feet when we
don’t know how to dance but the ceremony calls for it.
A white muskrat pelt hangs over a coat stand its
jaw rigged to open and close when pressed
under its boneless chin. I spent hours looking for
veins in its plasticized eyes. On a Ouija board
we spell STAIN over and over.
I don’t get covered in sweat. The dust doesn’t
kick up. Our nightdresses sheer as paper
the death toll lies on.
