By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

-Lao Tzu

“Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.”

-Gertrude Stein

THE RAPE

How she remembered her name

How she felt her skirt circle her knees

How she felt who she would be

How she could feel heat come off her cheek

Smoking off in end of —ember air

 

How life would not be what she thought

How life would not bend

But she would

She would learn to bend over and over again

 

And the kiss on her thighs, it weighs there

It weighs there, in Poughkeepsie air

This end of here air

 

Smelling of clay

Smelling of fruit - 

Muffled in heaps of

Neighborly trash

Picked-through bags

Broken fans, spoked, pricked 

Peels, rinds, six pack rings

Apple cored

And coffee ground

Reading snow

Smelling noon

 

And she makes herself 

A boat over

These left over minutes

These wide mouthed jars

 

And it’s only life

After all

And it goes

 

Down easy

In the wreck

 

You are only young once

And it’s always too late