Kitchen of Interrogation

 

Long, thin fluorescent tubes on the ceiling glaring

Her Aunt and cousin blaring

Helmeted in pink hair nets

Protecting beauty parlor sets

Netted trellis wallpaper with twining vines

Closing in on the find

“Someone took a knife and slashed

Look ther at the gash

On the brand new kitchenette, so neat

White vinyl, padded seat”

The bird on a board

Salt strewn to draw the blood

“Holy, holy, holy,” cried the cupboard altar

“Holy, holy,” answered the shabbes candelabra

The look of the brand new chair and mahogany table

Ruined by a certain unstable

“But who could it be?”

“Who else but she?”

“Look how she has the nerve to lie

Look how she has the nerve to deny.”

 

The child sits primly

Her ankle tucked under her thinly

She hears a strange low noise, the sound of a rip

Looks down with surprise to her pants cuff zip

But why should she tell the firing squad?

Already they’ve gunned her down so hard.

 

 

Birds

 

Something rotted in my breast

And a black bird with a gold beak

Pecked it out and flew away

The poison pellet in its beak

Like a morsel of bread

The stigmata kept bleeding

And a white bird with ivory beak

Poured warm honey in my ear