the blood red
curtains seem to be
draped across the sky.
isn't it beautiful?

she whispered to the
blond-haired girl
sitting next to her
yes, answers the girl.

she stood next to me in the lake one day.
we're so tall in the water. our legs: never-ending

crooked lines. i watched her fingers draw out
ripples that grew and grew, then strained and buckled.

a dim light illuminated the wrinkles in her father's eyelids.
she was wearing the yellow dress he bought her.

she is the color of the earth
(the kind that would get on your shirt when you dug for worms)

with nighttime eyes. she's not all there in the head.
neither am i. well, i'm all there in my fingers, and
my father says i'm all there in my heart, and that's
what matters, because without our heart our blood can't flow.
that was what she told me, when i brought the matter up to her.

her father was full of fire, but very kind. and sometimes she hid from him,
and sometimes she talked about the stars and birds with him. he was very fascinated.

especially by the sky. i once told her i thought she was too pretty to be lonely.
she told me she wasn't lonely and had all the people she needed. i guess it was me that

was lonely. i watched her dance at the edge of a cliff. windswept with her hair the color of dirt. the roar of the wind always filtered out my voice from the air. she looked upon

my countenance once, you would have thought i was a quiet admirer from the look on her
face. all five senses are filled with salty-waves and sand, and i'm running, and i forget in which direction,
but i'm running because i knew she was
too close and the rock was pushed over.