SOMETHING
for Carrie

Something

corked your lungs,

taught your stomach fermentation.

Someone

spent your childhood

period.

Somewhere

pedaled bourbon

to your black market blood pump

after your jaw broke young,

eased you into addiction.

Beheaded the piano,

your fingers still in its mouth.

Somehow

took the upper when you started bunking

with barbiturates.

A dictator’s liquor cabinet

became more impressive.

It made you rich in Father’s liquidity.

His arms, your swing set.

Now just a set of swings

at your face

in memory.

You look crazy ducking punches

while staring in the mirror.

Who beats up who

after death?

Blue eyes go deep,

you always loved the cold love of sharks.

You are statue shards at the air force base,

an arrowhead treasury buried beneath Chuck E. Cheese,

mollusk dust in a stripper’s hair,

a hand-woven quilt left in the space station.