a samovar, a sink. in regular succession or promiscuously; the misery of all at once. a hot flush, a headache and bruised knees. a bouquet on every branch bending toward the street, girls in borrowed garters dropping press-on nails in the stairwell like blossoms, silvery-pink and fluttering. i’m almost inclined to collect them all; the nails of generous women clogging every gutter. the bottoms of my shoes crusted with yellow blooms like snot. great pink clumps surging, as if a cord has been pulled, a shade opened, a door and her eyelid.

a salt rain in the clouds, the scent of kelp and whales with mouths full of ancient toothbrush bristles, caught in loaded trees, shaking salt to the street. a velvet surging, all too much at once, my heart struggling against my stomach. the house won’t hold.

pushing a sponge-headed mop over the floorboards in an effort opposite the direction of the boards laid across the room. swallowing when i’m done, slowly and clearly. i keep myself busy by holding onto something. it is still raining and the rain has nothing to do but sink.

a welt carved into my thigh from an object which i kept on my lap for awhile but which is now gone.

street signs and addresses wavering, as if cold, water riveted to broken doorbells; no call to fetch me from suffering. herds of trees anticipating the mail: no packages today. a rupture in the sky and the street lights struggle to turn on, hissing and buzzing like bawling girls, pulling pigtails. if this continues, i’ll learn to swim: a bucket and a bathtub, a girl in galoshes with a broom, sweeping tadpoles toward the drain, taking care to catch each one. for no reason but a way of keeping time: each stroke, feet together, knees together, blowing out air. can i count each button, every light i left on, a room i don’t use.

a door left slightly open, so that the cat hurdles against it, his claws catching on the bottom edge of the frame: he pulls and pulls, the force of one cat wanting in, battling a block of wood. when it swings open he falls back, legs pumping and then thrusting forward, propelling himself from floor to window ledge. the screen he can’t get by, bounces him back. he moves in the way of girls jumping rope, hula hoops, somersaults.

to be the prettiest, the most ready to descend. from the rituals of the jungle gym to nylon stockings stretched over wire hangers. the forest is empty of anything but girls in white dresses. they can do what they like, such as slip into a clock. they don’t like to be told what to do, to have the mechanics explained. time is often passing and what they love is to steep in the senselessness of forest paths lit by fluorescent lights; the feel of a kidskin glove on a bare thigh; the limpid eye of a rose in her lap. if i leave i can go anywhere: from here to a seesaw, a swing, a shallow swimming pool. because i have been alone and i have flung myself from here, drawn by the constant gravity of trains moving underground, the incessant pull of water to the sea. girls in a city they’ve never seen, every tree a furnace for forgetting.

a kind of maze of white ankle socks. the kinds of snakeskin secrets girls have, sloppily abandoned in favor of something new. i haven’t told anyone; i’ve been hushed by moths wrapped in wax paper and the relentless ache of getting ready to be in line. moving forward to smile, to lift my chin so the bones in my neck collapse.

a girl won’t ever be here again. she’ll loose some blood, cut her nails, her hair - but no wound. and then again, the bathtub water lukewarm, clogged with skin cells, soap.

a chapel of horns chuckling, a blonde fringe swathed across her forehead like heavy, velvet curtains. her long black lashes, two millipedes hinged above her cheeks. her hair held back with a rubber band taken from round a newspaper that morning, swept into a knot while coffee boiled on the stove. her face closing in, blurring until it rises on the surface of the screen the moon reflected on water: even her dark lashes fade.

this is how to disappear on film. her face rolling back to its features and a quick snap to the whole band gathered around her, a child sitting at her feet, a tambourine in her hands like a embroidery hoop. she perches on a stack of amplifiers, her little boy in cowboy boots, a striped shirt, buttons pinned to his chest. the camera moves up and down between them, then to the wall behind her head, making quick zooms into her face them out again, her hand keeping the beat with a rattle banging against her tambourine. a resonant curdling, the long neck of a man’s guitar stretched across his lap, the scooped neck of his black tshirt. finding what shapes there are, the bow on a violin moving in a suggestive way, suggestive of a worm finding it’s way out of the earth, reeling in the sun. a shadow pulsing on his jaw. so many ways for the camera to come in between them, to take the opportunity to strike them out in black and white, the sound they make a sort of pitch and moan, bent elbows and a pulse in dissonance with the camera’s tracking.

stops and starts, rises and falls, lured out and back in again in a mechanical, precise way; not a bodily thrust, a mechanic movement, from here to there exactly each time, whipping out a measuring tape. wallowing in the dregs of her faded dressing-gown, distracted by the clucking and squabbling around her. whatever the camera is doing she pays no attention to, almost bored and disinterested, glancing down at her boy, a child with his mouth open like a baby bird.

the camera swinging furiously back and forth, a roller coasters, agitating, the camera taking her image and shake, shake, shaking her wildly, so that she trembles yet is still, totally still, tangled like any other lady beating her tambourine. a static, droning noise, carried out and reproduced; all the men wear dark sunglasses, glistening opaque eyes, a buzz snaring sound, whipping back into a squeal. the little boy shakes a rattle now, in one hand, his mouth slightly ajar, tongue laying at the crux of his teeth, the camera zooming in and out on him, into a space in which he isn’t, an empty silent space behind everything that’s going on. and up and out again to a man using his fingernails as guitar picks. reeling around the room, swooning with the droning music, caught up in some frenzy. swaying and rolling, as if it had a body itself. and the shadows are lengthening under her eyes, a colorless blush rising on each cheek, and she smiles, casting everything away.

a luminous head of white blonde, hot blonde, a parallel between her bright head and the round tambourine in her hands: an orbit of two molten planets. and the camera nodding itself side to side. how long can a little boy sit there in his cowboy boots shaking a rattle. he stands and walks to his mother, clutching her legs in stripes, their two striped bodies clashing, horizontal with vertical. the drummer’s sunglasses slide down his nose, his eyes peek out over the top, flicker. and cut.

he’s moving out of the way, picking up his rattle again, exhibiting a painful look, biting his lower lip, the camera dividing him and his mother, stuttering on her face; her quick smiles, playing her guitar with a butter knife. he doesn’t quite look sad any more, if he ever did, if anything beyond what can be shown; a boy sitting next to his mother and the camera’s movements against him, of which he has no experience. an arrangement of men around them like a court, his mother’s blonde hair for a crown. the camera’s lights going off and on, the room gradually shot to black and then released. finding blackness in other ways: shadows cast by the drum set, a solid stripe on a man’s shirt. small flecks of light interfere, then increase.

lights full up, a cop walks in and out, they carry on as before. a slow, steady beat, a soothing rocking, a little boy sitting in a guitar case, as if storm could come and carry him away, floating through the city in his makeshift ship. the music stops, she stands with one hand lifted slightly away from her face, a slat shadow across her eyes; walks off screen. they all stand and walk off screen, an empty space of stools and amplifiers and microphones.

they come back on, stand and pose for the camera, one man holding a camera, raising it, depressing the button. outside the set, an inky dark beyond where they’ve been for so long, a shine of silver paper, police officers and men in suspenders. a darkness that fills out everything, makes a charge. wires leaking across the floor, men standing around with their hands on their hips, unoccupied now by guitars or drumsticks, and one man with his hand curved around the alphabet. a cord. there’s film left, run until it runs out, capturing everything that happens afterwards, a long necked bottle taking a sip. she kisses him cheek to cheek. abruptly and purposefully: she’s ready to go, her purse slung over her shoulder, her gloves flopping over an extended wrist.

do i have to speak louder than this, louder? can you hear me? she says.

you couldn’t possibly hear this, could you baby? he says.

can you really hear this, really? she laughs, shakes her hands, long earrings frothing, puckered silk and rosary beads. eight seven six she blows smoke from pursed lips four twelve two one one what?! she says. bodies cluttered on the screen - who is in it? she says. so many bodies that some bodies tend to disappear, into mirrors and back alleys, almost completely naked, it takes so long to say each name of every person here.

she calls each name, my dear, the camera panning to find a face to land on: is this her, could this be her or who is; this is a glass table top reflecting a bunch of flowers in a vase. this is love on the dressing-table, a girl dropping hairpins and blowing a kiss, clutching a cup, reading a story from a magazine. i can’t say i’ve been doing much. a necktie a bowtie a cigarette, a microphone they pass among them; she clutches at her rosary and pauses. to make up for lost time. white briefs; dreadful fur; a cuff folded back over an elbow; a flex of her knee. creeping hairs on his belly caterpillar, clinch up his chest. the sound of motors revving in the street. all you hear is this and that. her and this and that. now that she’s dead you never hear anything about her, this or that. bodies cluttered like dirty dishes.

tomato juice in paper cups, he pushes the microphone away, saying i hate that thing. she’s suckling her cigarette, her rosary in her free hand, seated on a stool next to herself in a mirror, at the wrong angle. trying to remember her prayers, who she might mention, all those acknowledgments. never sweet enough, to pick and preserve each name. hiding all her secrets in the accounting, letter by letter and line by line.

the vagrant image of her tender, downy hair flipping up on the back of neck; her thin, ostrich arms. another girl laying on the floor, dragging on her cigarette, settled beside a mirrored disco ball lost from orbit. she takes a roll of paper towels and starts tearing off a sheet, giving it up. you realize what it’s costing you, she says. very serious, her big earrings so ridiculous, jesus me beads in a falsetto, then deep, then again.
give it to me, she says. the girl beside her with a bow tied at her neck, so that she’ll remember. let’s think of fun, she says, dipping her fingers into her tomato juice, flicking red specks at his white dress shirt, his jean jacket. can i say something? she says, you have ketchup on your face, anything for a little colour.

as they progress they gather more, more and more has been recorded, and what is it: everything that has been going on, and continues as long as the camera is recording. you’ve made a mess, you naughty boy, go in the corner and hide, undoing each button on his shirt; peeling it pack, he lifts his arms for her. several people are partially undressed, or overdressed: her rosary, her earrings. an awful clutter of stuff and bodies all clinging together; a guitar on a coffee table next to a girl spread on the ground. she’s laying with her back against a furniture dolly, perfectly formed. somebody’s wounded, something’s happening. something they can all sing along to. i can’t give her the right answers, he says.

opening an umbrella, rolling her wrists. her earrings fluttering, like they might take off, reel round the room, sip from each cup: but sutured to her ears, pierced through the flesh, extended into her. a boy wears a plastic bag as a stole, and the effect succeeds as fur cannot. i think it looks rather stylish, she says. i just don’t know what to do, licking her lips, turning to herself. i don’t know who to undress next.

she looks at herself in the mirror but the woman who is speaking isn’t her, it’s not her voice. her mouth moves but it’s like the tracking is off: not always her i can hear, a wreckage of voices colliding. find out what she’s saying, he says. is she protesting. a spread, a stage, stop upstaging: take a gander. everyone takes a paper napkin, folds it neatly in their laps, once, twice. i should go and wash the dishes. i want to do my hair. i am doing it. pressing her hands together, going through the motions but not really doing anything, drawing a cross through her chest and amen, of the holy.

try again and oh dear she says, putting one hand to her head, oh dear, she says, blessed!! her earrings won’t stop. play with us, she says, now and he says now and she says, how i am supposed to know? and when?

louder! he says and she shouts death! and he says i’m afraid you can’t be heard. clutching herself with her arms folded, then hands together, the camera zooming in from the crowd onto her, only her, her raw cheekbone and the earring out of control.

you better be thankful, she says. my dear, my lovely. go bother somebody else, i don’t want to hear about it.

that will do, he says.

covering her ears with her hands. hallelujah! he says. she sings along, counting along on her fingers, who is real and who is faking, hallelujah! and stops, and stops stops singing. he turns to the camera, what’s it all mean? she stops his hand, pushes him out of the frame.

let’s play pretend. i can’t be intellectual, there’s not enough time. i can’t come in. collapsing on each other, laughing and human flesh and a laughing girl who put out the light and oh and how dare you and cigarettes lofted high, ashes scattering, oh here i am i have been can i…

long hair mangled by the sun’s soft focus, flustered strands stuck to her painted lips. copper kisses for charcoal eyes, a bird batting against a lace curtain, the wind pushing back her dress so that she sparks, flares. the rooted colour of her eyes, singed at the edge; tipping back her head she closes her eyes. the envelope in her apron pocket, stamp canceled, slit open with a kitchen knife. the letter inside read with a magnifying glass, a pin-point of light setting it to flame.

her hair now neatly noosed, not a single hair escaping from the tight braid pressed between her shoulder blades. otherwise, her hair slipping forward, soaking in her teacup. little beauty for herself, her dress hung upon the wall like a painting, nobody inside; all she needs is a white dress thrown across her back like a fox’s pelt, split in the middle with the sleeves sticking out, starched. she’ll make it look effortless and natural. she might even be pleased by a piece of chocolate wrapped in pink foil, unpeeling it a work she can do with her hands: the foil in one piece. she can look now, cautiously from the doorway: holding out her long hair to be combed and rolled at the nape of her neck, a plump coil suckling her skull like a garden snail.

a deep breath and not a word, all the cleaning she’s done uncontrollable, unraveling itself, a dust that won’t stop coming to rest. every line she ever said she said herself: all women or only beautiful women? she started with the first words and kept on. transfixed by light and by its destructive power. neurotically smoothing down the long plaits of her hair, her hands knuckled, creeping up and down; she can’t stop touching herself, her rings glinting in ways she can’t see. doing all this by hand, each infinitesimal thing decided by her, made by her, brought here by her; an obsession that goes beyond recreating, a kind of resistance offered by her dress, doing what a body can’t. a way of distracting, coming in and out of focus with each indrawn gasp; a tangerine pulsing in a dish, the visible distance of her hair overwhelming, sprung from her head like thunder.

a fleeting glimpse of a positive image: i can’t make out her face. a girl pressed and dried like a photograph, between the pages of this book. a bad transfer, skin squealing as the camera pans from left to right, from floor to ceiling, from head to toe. a girl encased in mirrors, on her own in the most public manner possible. a girl revolving without division between the wall and the floor, performing the most menial, degrading and frivolous chores. visuals detached from a narrative like untethered moons. no planet to see by, the bluish skin tone of a girl lost in blooming over the surface, thousands of rampaging beauties moving inexorably towards a strange but real brilliance.

her mouth came close to producing an o but she closed it, snapping tight her teeth. making an effort to startle and dazzle, equipped with paper and tulle, sheets, handkerchiefs and safety pins. what can she do with these things that will make it possible to go on; how should she arrange them? what will come first? a star projecting allure, ignoring totally her radiant transformation. there’s not much here but damp hair, distilled flowers. how to hold her lovely confidence, losing not one single drop; how to hold her breath, how to make a ritual to bring her back, slowly, advancing with her feet turned out, so that i can see her coming. the area just beyond her face gorged with glass, colour and light. a distance that leaves me cold, without fixed hours, longing to be less far from pleasure. i would have liked exactly the opposite. the leaking bellows of waist high windows, a girl lovingly reproduced so that she might have the chance to overcome crude lighting, unbearably clumsy exaggerations: yes, tinsel and stardust, and cellophane, too. her only protection from the sun is the colour of her eye, confidently developed. her serpentine poses, easily imitated; an intimacy to her figure that embarrasses her….. i’ve been too rough.

a headache band of beauty round her temple, drawn too tight. she has too often been betrayed, came late, exhaustless, and continued dancing through the night. she’s posed to the best of her ability, taken the elaborate preparations necessary to greet the light: an ermine filched from a cupboard, a scraggly slip wafting to her ankles. what is doing and what is undone. she’s gone aside to the water, to the river and committed herself to the sea.

flowers upended in a wastebasket; as she leaves the house she sets things in order: the sterling sorted, linens starched and pressed. a dropcloth thrown over every mirror, a bereavement of beauty and the light goes out. and i am seldom able to remain still; i come forward, faintly emerging from the background. it’s so hard to keep still while i have so much to do. i’ve been caught in a change, obliged to put on charmeuse silk, restored to powdering my face without the aid of artificial light.

a cat can call for her dinner, at the window cawing; making another attempt to come in clearly. if the phone rings, i won’t answer; i’ll bend back the lid of this cat food can with a butter knife, mashing cold, soft meat into a dish. hold open the window with an upended book, spine wedged against the screen. my hand coveting a clamshell, the business of domestic life fulfilling every moment with soapsuds. and she’s been abandoned in her dress too long, mopping up spilt tea. guided by my feeling like embroidery thread pulled through a tapestry by a tiny needle. only so small, only like this. and then, and before, but especially after: the duties of the house, sweetly humiliating; doing this on my hands and knees, pleased to be pointing out every error. why am i not yet done. this is a thing i need to do, which must be done, which will never be finished, page by page. a part of every day is given, and cannot be had back: not for anything, not for the relics of winter, not for the heavy lock of hair falling forward onto her face. the terror of not knowing what will come next, what will the next thing be. have i revealed her poorly, hips thrust forward, one toe pointed at the camera like a machine gun.

only persistence and patience, a cardinal on my ring finger, a dappled deep-eyed deer in a haze of incandescent light.

carrying on without caring which way i’m going. to the left, a eggshell with a lightbulb popped on inside, fluorescence blooming. to the right, the luxury of a household without the fixative of a line. i go forward; i’ve been learning language, what a pen can show. putting this together, falsifying and fabricating as i go along: the privilege of fiction to adapt abruptly, disregard mysteriously opened doors. relying on rupture to cause my downcast face to lift up in excitement.

the word and the image forced apart, adjusting to accommodate the body of a girl between spacer and lead. the pressured glances which act against her, pinning her to a window frame, her skirt spread. i’ve been doing less than nothing, like a mannequin turning round, exhibiting the sediment of all this glitz, a voluptuous gauze heaving gracelessly, incapable of responding to a breath. scrutinized for the light i spill, wastefully. i’m often longing to save these stars, toxic to touch, lethal to look at directly. to lose myself i’ve provoked these particular encounters… listening to myself say this outloud, i change direction as i go along, adapting the text to allow in the possibilities rising up before me. the exemplary force of what i can’t see without looking; flocks of seashells erupting in my garden, crushing every sprout. the beauty and the blemish of a girl caught in a series of self-reflections, turning towards delicate little objects to balance out her unmistakable eyes. the delicious and satisfying accumulation of so much stuff: i want to cultivate a galaxy, bracket every em and en. the backdrop of secondary pleasures, functionally endless: the illusion of a sky at the end of an alleyway, clouds on cardboard. the difference cannot be blocked from view.

she can be said to speak. to speak back as a symptom of her of her reflection. what she says, if i acknowledge hearing it, is yes. to whatever happens, whatever surplus i invent: yes and yes, demanding yes and suggesting yes and contributing her yes as a prelude to action. latching onto the camera, wearing the lens as a mask: yes, she says. if i am prepared to live, i will not be indifferent; i will listen and readily reply. i will not hesitate to call.

the heartlessness of her silver lined hips. hard to get salt water out of silk. she’d wear black before a tragedy, inexplicably snap a button from her sleeve with her teeth. swallowing whole suits worth of small buttons, glutted in her belly; the sound of buttons shuffling against each other in the bottom of a girl. her dress punctuating her, coming to a full stop at her wrist, settling on a sleeve. her kneecaps scarcely seen, hovering beyond the outermost edge of her slip. she depends upon a breeze to start unsettling the arrangement of her skirt; otherwise, she’ll have to start making unrestricted movements, crackling in chiffon. the extra charge of glamour distilled by the telephone’s ring; when she answers her obligations the illusion is effaced - she answers as anybody might, the receiver clinging to her anxious ear, the trunk wafting through her loose, dismantled hair. the threat of fabric, simulating skin; she takes the time to slouch in satin, taming her dress to bargain, blackmail, bless. she’s clashing with the scenery, her collar slightly askew - a girl groomed by tulle, raiding the dress rack. she’s always stopping here, stooping to see herself set loose by the earth. mountains around her peeling, shedding slate.

my accumulated dresses may be carved out of hard candy. glossy, almost perfect; i want to lick them. the enunciation of silk, satin and velvet, crushed in the closet: a creeping grammar. if only i didn’t have to give anything back; i’d finely be able to do what i might do if i had everything i wanted. time might be taken by a repertoire of poses, unmendable gestures mingling with frail beasts. the velocity of motion determined by a pinked hem.

fur must never over-act, must be reconciled to passively lying still, like a tuna fish. if i place myself on a park bench, little birds come and rest on my hat. impulsive birds pausing for a moment, flaunting the splendour of their out-turned wings. in the moments before young girls are thrilled, walking by. a tiny bird lifting off my hat, dissolving in the light of a noonday sun.

nothing ever stands still, nothing ever breaks. can i continue on as before, seeking out each serge and seam? these details may betray, may serve as evidence of expressions of the body; a substitute for speech. my initials embroidered in the lining of my kidskin gloves; the special knowledge of thread pulsing against an artery. a charm produced and sustained by this small addition, by the silk crepe lining of my wool coat, the extra layers of lace in my petticoat. every morning i constitute myself: a wide tooth comb, a makeup brush kept clean by witch hazel. the dishes won’t get done, not in time; not tomorrow. a thin film of blue-grey mold unfolds itself over the top of yesterday’s coffee, lurking in the bottom of a cup. the inconvenience of every cup that needs me. they may never be completely satisfied, but at least my apron looks cheerful, hanging from a hook on the back of the door. the efficiency of an apron is hard to bear, but familiar. i have no need to mop the floor or iron the tablecloth as long as the apron is there. there is a pleasure in movement and a variety of things to be done; i need to find a way to keep my stockings from sliding down around my ankles. it puts me in a mood for cake and failure. speak clearly, skirt, sashay. every possible daytime occasion may be included here; this is a story told by the dress i wear, no different from my skin.

it isn’t only a girl.

not only the light that’s brought her forward, ready to smile. the switch from gold - fabric gathers, her throat buttoned closed with pearls. two girls need to learn to share. i want everything for myself, a pinafore, a barrette to hold back this falling forward lock of hair. everything she has might as well be mine. her throat closed up by a seam, her split: a whisper then a roar. i only ever see her: she takes up all the space. her hands moving across typewriter keys like spiders building a web, swinging back on forth, hitting shift.

everything is arranged so that she can see what i can’t: i want her perspective, to switch sides so i can look, eavesdrop on the images she has access to. red flowers bursting open, a girl scratching a pencil across a sheet of blue veined paper. light but certain. she doesn’t go all the way off. two red notes on sheet music: her finger pricked with a scissor point. swearing with her heart, her hand. wiping the scissor blade clean on the edge of a table. pulling her kneesocks up. insects kept in crayon boxes, throbbing in her pocket. collecting what she needs: cupping her hand against a sun warmed wall to scoop a lizard into a bucket. a bucket of lizards with their tails snapped off. i only need the tails, she says. a line of trees ordered in size from small to large leaning in the wind. her skirt brushing back against her knees, her bucket swinging from her elbow. she goes up and down the stairs, coming back carrying everything she owns. every belonging has its own box, and a new paragraph must begin.

a household loaded with little girls. mending her smile with a tube a lipstick. she presses and the colour floods. the steam from the tea kettle rises into her hair as she pours. the cat looks up at once, anxious for a spilt drop of cream. she does it again, pouring the water more dramatically this time, her elbow lifted away from her body, jutting out at an angle. the cat’s gone on; she did something wrong the first time around. with each retake her hair contracts, coils, hisses and splits. she recharges the batteries, bites her fingernails, spitting jagged half-moons into her teacup. she wouldn’t do this if it couldn’t be on film. if she did not do this i wouldn’t be watching her, making each moment into an acquisition. folding her socks into cubes, no relation between her body and what she’s got on.

here’s what happens when i let myself go: it never works. i keep coming back to the same thing; i’m distracted by the terrible shape of women with their heads held in their hands. they make unsteady, awkward triangles; they make me uncomfortable. i get anxious and then i start to dump girls in like goldfish. they slither into place, some wearing party hats and shooting off their mouths. i want to untangle them, like winding a skein a yarn from a loop held between the upended dowels of a chair.

each outfit guaranteed by matching earrings: it’s right like this. more elaborate, lightweight, both swift and well. the smooth margin of one girl’s cheekbone, swooping into a blustering wave. how did she get in here, what is she doing now, eavesdropping on the neighbors. moving her to a different space does nothing: she still looks and acts the same as she did surrounded by all those rhododendrons.

the visual question of her smile, put out and then carried away.

i should be able to fit as many girls as i need in here, cram them alongside stray buttons, hooks and eyes, velvet millinery flowers, aged satin ribbon, tweezers, vaseline and handkerchiefs. all the girls will come wearing pastel party frocks, carrying presents wrapped in tin foil. i should be able to get as many girls as i need. in here, there’s room for them all; a dressing room for every girl, a looking-glass to empty out the embryos of a thousand pimples. the radiant lustre of girls full sweet and dainty.

crumbling her face over a teaspoon, her nose wrinkled like tissue, achoo.

the microphone follows like a moth drawn to light, fluttering delicately over her head, it’s dainty wings her halo.

holding her skinny arms out, her hands limp like a baby bird’s, a good girl, crying for her worm.

field flowers clutched in her hands, flower girl slowly peeling the floral wallpaper from the wall, revealing a bricked-up fireplace; no way through, no sliding down the chimney, no bats flying in the house. a bird beating itself against the bedroom window, crashing against it, not quite understanding: the trees outside so clear, automobiles perched on their branches like canaries, rusted yellow, wheel wells chirping in the wind. a chandelier of wet nylon stockings hanging from the ceiling: she swings, the bottoms of her soles stained by berry juice; she’s been making wine, trodding down the bushes in her bare feet.

she’s always trying to keep up.

a homemade dress of sugar sacks, a pincushion shaped like a tomato; she hangs upside down, lets the blood run to her head, burn her. wiping the oozing liquid of he nose on her mother’s thin, gauzy curtains. singing the loose ends of her hair with a cigarette lighter, her braids slapping against her arched collarbones, so sapling, bent to the point. she reaches out and prick her finger on a piece of broken glass, the window shattered by the bird that beat it. holding her dress out to make herself float, spinning in the room around her, flowers shattering on the walls, falling at her feet. a circle of salt on the floor, dust on the bedspreads, the house lounging into despair, curdling in its foundations; it’s better this way, more perfect; foiling her long, white hair. stacks of old newspapers and empty jam jars scatter sunlight, stun her. the microphone slips in, she lifts her voice so that it might hear her, it’s really real, she says, sweeping up the glass with a dustpan. lines around her eyes like gleaming desert sand swept up in ruffles by a hot, fevered wind. she stands herself in a suitcase, kneeling and folding herself like a cashmere cardigan, side by side to paisley, sequins, foxfur.

she’ll catch a king in her outstretched hands, come home crowned. the microphone follows wherever she goes, a mist clinging to the molting leaves pasted on the forest floor. they wince as she stomps upon them, pumping her arms, car tires scattered like flower pots rolling away. things happen to her because she is ready to say yes, all the time no matter what. if she sees a pony standing alone on a hillside she will take him with her; the pony appears now and she takes it as it comes, pulling him by a rough, hairy rope. sliding in her palm, the pony’s lanky trot rousing dust from the road. a herd of redheaded children following her, shouting. she is too small to lift herself on the pony’s back; she walks beside him, strutting in her sneakers. the moon under her feet, the moon diademing the pony’s head; he whinnies, tossing the moon further into the sky. it bounces back, settles between his ears, perched forward. could you do that again, she says, in a sudden fervor.

the pony left behind, trailing his lead in the dirt; the girl counting each drop of water plunging from the kitchen faucet. when will it ever stop. she does nothing to shut it off; she can’t turn the handle tight enough. she counts one, two, three and keeps on counting.

please wake up, she says, so frustrated by what she can’t control, rising from the floor all covered in flour, the smell of plaster and a wound on her back covered by a spider web. washing her hands and then lifting them out of the water, her fingernails clean, not a speck of salt; a trout trafficking in her hair, the cars cradled in the trees chorusing until lightleaks, sunspots.