HeartbeatNoni Daylight is afraid.
She was curled inside her mother’s belly
for too long. The pervasive rhythm
of her mother’s heartbeat is a ghostly track
that follows her.
Goes with her to her apartment, to her sons’
room, to the bars, everywhere; there is no escape.
She covers her ears but the sound drums
within her. It pounds her elastic body.
Friday night Noni cut acid into tiny squares
and let them melt on her tongue.
She wanted something
to keep her awake so the heartbeat
wouldn’t lull her back.
She wanted a way to see the stars
complete patterns in her hands, a way to hear
her heart, her own heart.
These nights she wants out.
And when Noni is at the edge of skin she slips
out the back door. She goes for the hunt, tracks the
heart sound on the streets
of Albuquerque.
She steers her car with the hands her mother gave her.
The four doors she leaves unlocked and the radio
sings softly
plays softly and Noni takes the hand of the moon
that she knows is in control overhead.
Noni Daylight is afraid.
She waits through traffic lights at intersections
that at four a.m. are desolate oceans of concrete.
She toys with the trigger; the heartbeat
is a constant noise. She talks softly
softly
to the voice on the radio. All night she drives.
And she waits
for the moment she has hungered for,
for the hand that will open the door.
It is not the moon, or the pistol in her lap
but a fierce anger
that will free her.