PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL RAPED AT A SUBURBAN PARTY
And after this quick bash in the dark
You will rise and go
Thinking of how empty you have grown
And of whether all the evening’s care in front of mirrors
And the younger boys disowned
Led simply to this.
Confined to what you are expected to be
By what you are
Out in this frozen garden
You shiver and vomit –
Frightened, drunk among trees,
You wonder at how those acts that called for tenderness
Were far from tender.
Now you have left your titterings about love
And your childishness behind you
Yet still far from being old
You spew up among flowers
And in the warm stale rooms
The party continues.
It seems you saw some use in moving away
From that group of drunken lives
Yet already ten minutes pregnant
In twenty thousand you might remember
This party
This dull Saturday evening
When planets rolled out of your eyes
And splashed down in suburban grasses.