She’s the one who scrawled graffiti
on the walls of church, imagined
God’s tattoos dripped green in the aisle—
stars and fishes rising across time.
Pastor’s laughter echoed in her hair,
heavy with the scent of gravy.
She was no angel. She is his
nightmare, an itch in his bloodstream.
She will not climb Heaven’s ladder
to the stained sky. She escapes with
the water snake, still carrying
her crayon bouquet. She combusts
on the hot road to someplace else,
distant city where she skids like
a boat in mercury. Her face
a smashed moon in the purple hour.
What is a girl’s power? To veer
from the clock’s maniacal grin,
bust out of the round house, follow
the blood drops to the other side?
A window, her eye. A rope, her
dress. Platters, a ring—once her home.
She samples sounds of metal on
sidewalk, before Coyote sleeps.
Terry Wolverton is the author of ten books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, including EMBERS, a novel in poems. She is the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and is affiliate faculty in the M.F.A. writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles.