Karyna McGlynn

the live oak over the nursery got a disease they could only save one limb it wasn’t surprising; it wasn’t that kind of nursery a girl rode her red tricycle around the bottom of the pool the pool had no water; it hadn’t rained the girl kept smelling her hand it smelled like honeywheat, or the inside of a girl’s panties someone said, race you she nodded okay and pedaled like hell after three laps no one had passed her she looked over her shoulder, lost her balance ripped her hands & knees on the blue concrete the one limb on the live oak curved like a question would she need stitches again there was already ink under her skin & iodine on her tongue or was it the other way around she could see black thread bunching sewing centipedes under her skin her throat burned and she couldn’t move her legs it wasn’t a tricycle it was something she couldn’t get her foot out from under she hated to stop or lose her shoe and, I’m sorry the pool was full of water

It’s no wonder          I’m always tired          with all these tract houses— It’s night & cold on my belly in                                                  the undeveloped field now I have to bury her clothing inside                                                a black garbage bag in plot D police cars roll         past but continue        down the treeless parkway even after shining their lights on                                                  me in my freshman sundress I can only assume they don’t see                                                  the significance of my presence but I must say          1994 is a simpler         time—not everyone is suspect I crawl up next to my old house                                                   & look through a lit window my mother reads a book in bed            I want to knock           on the glass, there’s something I need to tell her

the termites had deboned the thing it was clean there was no saving it in one bedroom a dresser with blue drawers its peg-legs rested on pure membrane a girl just stood in her underwear ran the tips of her fingers over her ribs thought greyhound no one knew no explaining why she didn’t fall through the floor the kids were drinking beer in the yard the tetherball rope caught one girl’s throat her mother’s face obscured behind the porch screen the mesquite shadow no one could make her out her feet rested on hot sashes of dust the sounds on the television were far away as that big caliche mound looked lake a waving man the president got shot the boards stayed together for another three days it was a matter of apathy or swelling or everyone was too hot to move