On The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly
The Survivor of a Slasher Flick in Middle Age
The dusk of ponds, the flesh of summer camps:
Colors from bad dreams. Her friends from then
Are ageless now, forever in their teens.
The killer disappeared with their limp lives:
A poacher with a bag of fallen birds.
She still can feel the whistle of his breath,
The swish of boning knife through gummy air.
But now, grown old and heavy-hipped and gray,
Death comes slower-paced, a tourist bus
That hisses to a halt where vistas are,
And cannot raise the wingbeat of her heart.
Occasionally, the black of dream-plagued nights
Will snag her skin. She’s young again,
And radiant, one step ahead of everyone.
