Missing

Jennifer Paige©1997

I lied again today

In meadows of Pendergrass

Mother’s sick again

Her room a waterfall of wooden pearls

            Before the door

I see through, into another hemisphere

So I run

Not even the fastest horses can catch me now

Grass as tall as my hips

Burnished

Tarnished by the air

Bleaching my skin

I’m a phantom already

With a Cheshire smile—

I left behind the pain and rain

Her bed sores

She wailed in the darkness

I’m always being leered at

Father Lucifer

Mother Crime

A piece of meat under freezer-burned skies

So cold

Home

The sky is pink on this side

My side

All slender and pale

As it peeks out between my buttons

And shirt-tails

I’ve never seen a sun like this before

Nor tasted pears so sweet

Skin so soft

Eyes so dry

They don’t know that I’ve left that place

And my body

Rotting in the ground

Lighter than feather I am

But I think that I will miss the grass…

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