May Day, 1947 (for Claudia)
Rachel McKibbens
That morning, a woman rolled out of bed and whispered, Today,
I am no ones mother. And so she became no one's mother, just a
flagpole of skin standing in the yard, a checkered apron at half-mast.
Three states over, a young girl was lying on the couch in the basement,
lips hard-kissed by her ambitious boyfriend. His eyes closed, the boy
did not notice the girl become a large pail of cold water filled to the rim,
hair turned to slow green strands of algae. Fourteen hundred feet in
the sky, a dazed heart sang out: Without you, there is nothing left,
then jumped. Somewhere between the sixtieth and fifty-ninth floor,
it became a brunette in white gloves, long stockingd legs with their
heels kicked off, a mouth drawn over in deep red wax, a diamond ring
on a shattered hand.
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