I wake up thinking in lines

and scenes: a man

in a long dark overcoat leans against a pillar at the far end of a bar,

his face cloaked in inky dark. Something sinister simmers.

An angry scene, chaos, mayhem, a melee of bodies toppling. Glass

shattering, men struggling to be

something better than they are.

In the doorway, a girl

in a shabby  dress, gray-blue eyes dark as bruises, stunned

at what she could do,

what she had done.

Let me eat again

of memory sitting on the cold

concrete of my parents’ porch, one summer

night, the sticky cotton of my sundress

clinging to my legs in the heavy heat, palpable

with all I did not know.

He knew

everything I did not, cocky

with all he could take; everything

still, the night air whispering

long after he was gone. I was stunned

at what I could do,

what I had done.