is a girl dead by the side of the road [you know
she’s dead, have you ever seen anyone that shade
of blue and unblinking] and still you can’t pull over
for anything, for gas, for her because you don’t
want to be the next girl-shaped object hazarding
on the side of the road. We are filling the ditches
like deer, bloated bodies in November,
who run from gun crack and trophy hunger
to find something that can only feel worse. The news
that likes to go into all the gory details.
The news wants you to know how she died
terrified. Eyes wide, bleeding from all the ways
a man forced himself between her and the morning. And I know
better than to feel safe even alone in my apartment, keep my blinds
half-mast. Listen for footsteps in the linoleum, on the stairs,
in the dark wonder once I can finally shed my body
for simulacra what new violence will be created to remind me
some days I am only the chalk outline of myself.