misreadings


In one story, she falls open
like a clock, her insides blue
and chaotic, all gears. Wires fashioned
into vowels and finches spilling.
At the bottom of ditches,
the unlucky float in dresses lined

with metal hooks and fishing line.
Pink lips moving, opening
like gills. They take on ditch
water, their hands bluish
and imprecise. Another version spilled
from a movie fashioned

from a book fashioned
from a song. Her voice is lined
with velvet and hidden, a spill
of gold leaking into the open.
The expanding blot of her blue
sundress. Long after they ditched

her in the canary grass, her skirt ditch
dirty and out of fashion,
my fingers went blue
gripping the trawl line.
The morning opened
with a grayish spill.

In my version, she spills
the goods, the truth, ditch
weed all unruly. Opens
her throat and fashions
the hole in the plot, a line
through the blue

arc of sky. Sings filthy blues
in the club, her drink spilled
on the table, licking the line
of her lip. Her a last ditch
effort, sipping an old fashioned
in the opening

scene. Took a spill, ditch
dark fiction being all the fashion.
The line of her mouth open and blue.

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