1.#

I conjured him, my almost-
murderer, my anger twin.
Pissed off on the freeway, he
followed, saw her try to jump
out of the car, decided
to hunt down the innocent.
This is what I tell myself.

2.#

This is what I tell myself:
I conjured the radial
slices of red from nothing,
summoned murder in the dark,
his knife hidden from streetlight
– not overhand like Psycho –
his short stroke opened my side.

3.#

His short stroke opens my side.
That morning and three more fall
away to the trash, remove
the lining of my stomach,
leave in swirls, empty, open,
blotted with the longest sleep
I will know without its shape.

4.#

What I know about this shape
as it sits at my shoulder
and swallows shadow would not
fill these two lines, except that
it drinks sleep and spits out day.
How could I ever forget –
I don’t remember, that’s how.

5.#

I don’t remember how I
stitched color, and now sunset
cannot leave way for sunrise.
I pour myself onto a
makeshift altar and a voice
that sang hymns swallows itself,
whispers the sursum coda.

6.#

To whisper sursum coda
does not require a blade edge,
which is to say that prayer
did not stop my leftover
want from having to run down
the street, leaking and yelling,
with seven minutes to live.

7.#

With seven minutes to live,
the last place I want to be
is dancing at the curb with
no shoes and a stack of dry
bones. The sky sees kindling like
that, it calls out for fire. Then
it conjures him, my almost-