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dancing girl press, 2013
$7.00 |
Katie Longofono lives and writes in Bronxville, NY, where she is an MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared in several fine journals, most recently Midwestern Gothic. Her collaborative chapbook with Mary Stone Dockery, Honey and Bandages, is forthcoming from Folded Word Press.
Catherine
She got busted again today -
handcuffed, twisted wrists,
pushed up against the law.
She washes herself, gasping
lungfuls of scum and bleach.
Tire tracks don't rinse clean.
Take-out Thai cartons do little
for bone-deep ache. She gives the next man
the go-ahead, flirting simple with chemicals.
He leaves enough to be desired. She retires.
Coupled with sunrise (too cold to breathe)
bus-waiting sessions, too dark
to read her agenda for each day--
her stab at organization, predictability,
stability under grown-up gloom scrutiny--
walking pavement erodes the sole,
So: she did not mind drowning so much
as the lonely dripping of child-rockets
ripped free, their lazy spiral
and knock into nothing.