Sunday, March 13th - "But She Could Have Left"

They ended up burying her

in the same outfit they found her in,

the faint drops of dried blood

just faintly visible against the backdrop

of the luscious, swarthy ermine fur,

or something meant to resemble it. Standing

in a circle holding hands,

we try to guess at her last words: maybe

do I look fabulous in this,

darlings, or perhaps even

the discarded need to look beautiful,

sometimes, don't they,

dears? We all

squeezed each other's hands,

felt for pulses, danced around

to the reggaeton songs

which she loved to sing

in the shower, deluding herself

into thinking none but the birds

could hear, perhaps thinking

that if she sang enough about love,

someone might come to believe it.

And one man, his hands draped

over his potbelly, puffing at a cigarette

noiselessly, says under his breath

that she deserved it – deserved it,

for palling around with the sort of people

who went shooting all day

and gambling all night, who would trade dreams

for another chance at the dice, another

quenched nightfall for another

hungry morning. Deserved it,

for not having the good sense

to walk out alone, leave him

in the dust, at the first sign

of danger, to accept the marks

around her throat as her one chance

of target practice, marriage as a chain

binding gasps to their silences. Sometimes,

I too believe lust is a game, love

an apocalypse, and wars are fought

only on the battlefields

of lightly stained bathroom tiles.

And if given the chance

to trade danger for bliss,

we all have to make believe

we can somehow make do with both,

lying lazily in the arms

of the springtime's

cruel saplings, the branches above

the only things that we deserve –

deserve to wrap around us

as the sun goes down, all that will ever

hold tightly and refuse to let go.