Fish to Fry
An unsolved murder, a flock of thieves
circling the city among pigeons, a bomb
threat and the real thing raining debris
into the streets, these are the fish fried
in the same pan day after day. And if
the young girl escapes the rapist's grasp,
plunging into the shocked headlights
of a busy road, her story is thrown
back into the pond of her own dreams,
a shark lurking among the bass and bream.
But if she disappears for day, if her
body is found in the woods, every drop
of the spirit squeezed out of her like
water from a new sponge, flash-bulbs
sprout up around her like magic tulips,
voices crawl into her wounds like insects,
the hands of white-coated me break her
further open like so much suspicious fruit.
It is the clues they want, the innuendoes
of brutality, of the final bursting into
flames of her desire to live. Next day,
we will feed upon her as the killer fed,
our eyes moving from column to column
like he wild boar's snout over ground.
By afternoon, her story will be fit
kindling for the evening fire, fit
wrapping for the last lucky catch at dusk.
This poem caught me off-guard, looking for the other poem in my book. (Which it turned out not to be in this book, but written by the editor of this book, who taught a winter class at my school. Maybe it was on a handout?) I start halfway down the page, and I see the drama of the news, the way things are reported, the way events should be handled, but are not. It really is like reliving the pain all over again, and must be hell on the families.
I would have posted a link but I could only find it online in an online copy of the book I'm holding now, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets of Virginia
http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22858531?q&versionId=27722210
OK so that's where you can find a free copy of the book online :)
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