SHE WAVERS LIKE A SPECTER IN THE DOORWAY of the crumbling, smoking house—

unreal, gory, outlined in a glowing orange-red,

her expression hauntingly unreadable.

The focusing and unfocusing image

of the interminable fields of dry soil

rocks and throbs slightly to the beat of her heart.

Cold, gentle wind scrapes against the grimy spans of skin

that the stolen, too-large-too-thin shirt fails to cover;

a few matted sections of her cornsilk hair

twitch slightly in the breeze.

Though it is tainted by thick, angry smoke,

she breathes deeply the fresh air that He never permitted her to breathe.

There is crackling,

there is barking,

there is an angry throbbing in her ears,

yet

it is

so quiet.

It seems so still,

as though it is all over—

finally,

truly,

ultimately over.

And here—

she is here—

alive;

oh God,

she is alive—

alive,

alive,

alive.

She risks a step forward,

and then another.

Her weak, bruised knees, damaged from battle, wobble

like the knees of a spotted fawn

as she half-instinctively walks toward the porch railing.

Her eyes remain fixed on the horizon—

the unfamiliar horizon that seems to beckon to her,

calling for her to come,

to venture toward it.

She must go.

She reaches the end of the porch

and nearly places her thin, boney hand on the weathered, greening railing

before she decides that she will not grant this house

such a gentle touch.

Arms drooping at her side, she slowly begins to descend the porch’s stairs

with trembling legs.

The barking of dogs—

three distinct,

deep,

angry voices—

crescendos, but she will not look back—

not now,

not yet;

the distance is not safe.

Her feet hesitate at the bottom of the splintering stairs.

A puddle of sick yellow grass trickles toward the sharp gravel driveway.

She remembered grass as green,

had held onto that last image of the green green seas of grass—

had called on that green, green grass day and night as she willed her day of salvation—

but it was yellow all along.

You have changed—were you waiting for me? she thinks

to her old, beautiful friend.

Have you missed me?

She lets herself spill onto the grass, collapsing face first into the prickly patch.

After so long, she has forgotten the feeling of grass,

its tickling and poking of her tender flesh.

Her chapped lips, pressed against the ground, crack into a cautious smile

and bear her blood-stained, chipped teeth as she rolls onto her back

and allows herself to relax into the mattress of needles.

Her pale eyes well with thick tears—

tears that haven’t come in years.

She lies

still

for a few moments,

her naked limbs splayed out around her,

and peers up at the gently-throbbing

desaturated sky.

The sun is small

and burns a bright white,

and in spite of the cold wind

it beats down on her sunless, translucent skin

like it did

in the hot summers

of her youth.

The sun etches itself into her retinas

as she smiles up at it.

You’re the same as ever—did you wait for me? she asks it silently.

Have you missed me?

She closes her eyes,

her face relaxing;

the purple ghost

glares at her

in the nothing.

Perhaps she falls asleep,

or perhaps she doesn’t.

But when she opens her eyes,

she is staring

at the same image as before:

the endless,

deep

blue

sky.

Nothing—

eating nothing drinking nothing seeing nothing nothing nothing nothing endless deep nothing—

occupying her time by thinking of the pain pain lashes of red hot pain against her face or across her chest or in—

cold dry hot humid cold dry again years days seconds all the same—

outside is changing outside is changing without her she must go back out she cannot see the sun—

the ceiling drips keeping time the only thing drip drip drip unhalting keeping time—

the fluorescent filled with dead bugs flickers—

nothing nothing nothing

Nothing is what she gives; nothing is what she gets;

He rations light, food, water; but sometimes, He will grant her one drop of water on her parched tongue,

a tease at mercy so that she will know He is merciful, especially compared to others;

a shake of His head when she does not strain against her chains for more;

she was so, so pretty when she showed that spirit—so pretty, so pretty

SHE HALTS FOR A MOMENT,

her hands dangling at her side.

There is a dull throbbing

in the darkening bruises and fresh clots that cover her body,

and her eyes move to the horizon again.

She draws in a deep breath;

the horizon beckons.

Driven by this calling

hidden somewhere in her soul,

she starts toward the crumbling road,

working her back teeth in spite of her pulsing jaw

in order to make the discomfort of the sharp gray gravel of the driveway

against her fragile soles

more bearable.

She walks to the center of the asphalt road,

across the thick, black cracks,

and feels something crush beneath her feet.

She finds when she looks down a limp, crushed flowering weed

sprouting from one of the cracks;

it is slumped on the hard ground,

stretched in the direction she is headed.

Her brows knit together.

Fighter—you were almost there, she thinks;

she stoops and picks the weed’s crumpled body off of the ground.

When she lets it go,

it sits weakly on its sad stem.

I’m sorry that you cannot come with me.

The faded yellow dotted line

trails down the road,

disappearing into the horizon toward

which the sun slowly sinks.

In her periphery,

there is a forest.

She must go toward the horizon,

where she is sure she will find safety,

rest—

but as she looks toward the spot to the road’s right,

the forest calls—

the forest is calling.

She must answer.

calling to her He says and perhaps He is right—

her mother’s voice called for her at first but she can no longer remember the sound—

not the sound of anyone’s voice but His—not even her own—

but past that even if that is true—she can hear a small voice

a whisper like a rustle through the trees or a songbird over a lake the world calling for her saying it will clothe her bareness with its leaves will shield her body with its bark will heal her wounds—

she must follow that sound because

and so young when He found her alone in the green field that stretched out interminably toward the horizon, wearing that pretty white dress that kissed her rosy knees, holding that basket of flowers, her smile white, her pink face like lilies, her voice like the chirping of birds, her hair like the silk of corn—so pretty that He had to have her for Himself, just for Himself, not for anyone else, not for her mother or for her father but for Himself—

He could provide her care, treat her well; He had the place for her

THE TREES ARE BARE,

OR NEARLY—

close to naked,

like herself.

The forests were only ever green,

only ever flowery,

only ever fragrant

in the basement,

but it seems like late winter now,

and this forest,

with its plush, brownish moss underfoot,

is so beautifully,

beautifully bare,

more beautiful than she ever imagined

bareness could be—

for this forest is hers,

and hers alone.

She passes several clusters of brown, wilted flowers;

sorrow pits in her stomach.

They must have been waiting

for her—

they must have perished in the waiting.

I’m sorry I’m late—I hope you can forgive me, she thinks.

When she touches the rough bark of one of the trees,

there is within her chest

the swell of sharing skin with an old friend.

Tree—you know me;

you remember me.

Did you wait for me? she asks.

Have you missed me?

She follows the trunk beneath her hand

up

to the sky,

where it seems to disappear.

She knows she must climb.

She can reach the lowest branch,

and when she begins to tug herself upward,

though it takes all of her might

and causes an immense pain in all of her wounds

and though she struggles as much with the climbing as she did the walking,

something within her begin to lift, too,

warming the inside of her chest.

This climbing,

this draw is instinctual—

ingrained from years spent in the woods

in her childhood.

Once she is on the first branch,

getting up the next couple is far easier,

and when she reaches about the sixth or seventh up,

she stops climbing

and sits for a moment.

Her shoulders heave as she tries to catch her breath;

she is so light

that the branch has no trouble supporting her.

She looks down.

inside it is always nothing eating nothing drinking nothing nothing nothing nothing up down around beside—

pain bruises blood it never ceases and she can no longer cry no longer feels the need—

she is trapped chained in a ditch a deep deep inescapable trench—

but outside it is green it is so green and so warm and so lovely she knows

she will see it again—

one day she will see it again see it clear and she will never see Him again—

never have to look at His hellish face His hands His mouth His

under His feet, her smile has lost its white, her face has lost its spring, her voice has lost its song, her hair has lost its silk, and she does not fight, gives Him nothing—but she is still beautiful;

no one else would love her in this state, but He does; He does—why can’t she understand that? unlike everyone else, He loves her, watches over her with His very own

AS SHE COMES UPON A DITCH,

she can hear the soft babbling of water;

with excitement, she picks up her pace

and stops at the bank of a small creek.

It is a beautiful thing,

wide and pretty but steadily moving.

She cannot see its bottom.

She hesitates for a moment to get in,

shivering in the cold air

and imagining the frigid water.

But she has survived hell already;

a creek is nothing.

She steps in,

pauses

to shiver a moment,

to grit her teeth,

and then walks a couple of steps;

the water comes halfway up her shins.

In the gelid water,

she begins to purify herself.

eyesHiseyesgofirstHiseyesgofirstHiseyesgofirst

HeeisyellinginpainbutHeisjustbloodunderherfingernailsjustbloodunderherfingernailsthatshewillwashawayintheriver

ON THE HORIZON LINE

TOWARD WHICH the growing, goldening sun inches

is a car.

Her heart, in joy,

falls to her feet—

and then she falls,

collapsing into a heap,

as if her body has

all at once

realized the severity of her situation.

The speeding vehicle screeches to a stop, some hundred feet in front of her.

Her head wobbles as her vision struggles to focus

on

the

blurred figure of the concerned driver.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay?” the driver asks;

it is an older woman.

The young woman cannot speak.

The driver’s voice is terrified.

“Can you stand?”

The woman’s wrinkled hand,

in an almost maternal manner,

finds the underside of the young woman’s arm.

The young woman slurs a few words of nonsense,

weakly half-standing,

and the older woman tugs her up

and toward the car door.

The sickly young woman is somehow settled down

into the passenger seat,

and her eyes find the window,

where the images she had imagined for so long

swim just out of reach

once more.

The driver busies herself

with a phone for a moment,

then begins to speak frantically into the receiver

as she starts up the car,

but the words swim

in the young woman’s head,

dissolving into a mass

of unintelligible sounds,

as the black-rimmed picture of the world outside of the passenger side window

starts to feel less

and less

real.

As the car drives by the hell

which has by now burned down to a smoldering frame,

the young woman wonders

if her captor’s corpse was already beginning to rot in the basement

before she lit the flame—

or if, perhaps, he is not dead after all,

and this is all another dream

from her place chained within the center of the earth.

As the car drives away,

there is this sick,

empty feeling within her,

as if

by escaping that place,

a part of herself

has,

too,

escaped.

White hospital room--

You are in your mother's arms

A delightful day

A difficult night;

Your mother goes to sleep tired

On your first school day

On your last school day,

You smile at your mother's face

And toss up your cap

Your cap is packed up--

It's in your attic beside

All your mom possessed

All that you possess

Will one day live in attics of

Kids held in your arms