Suddenly, there is a hole in the bars.
They melt inward.
I glide my hand through them.
The security guard makes her morning rounds and I clamp her boca
shut with my hand. I cradle the gun to her head and demand
she undress. She nods and begins to unbutton. Her belly fans
over her panties the same way mine does and blue veins sprout
across her corn-flour thighs. Her breasts hang
like two arms of a forgotten sweater.
She’s got dyed-black hair that thins at the top in a perfect circle.
In another life, we could be primas.
In this life, one of us
has to die.
I slip into the security guard’s blue uniform, I two-step over her body
and the blood spreading around her head. I stash the gun in my pants.
I stop at the water fountain. I sip. I’m feeling cocky.
I wipe my mouth.
I take my time.
I swing my new baton and whistle.
Blood dries on my face; a small, rusty sun. This uniform is itchy now. I’m already tired of this role. But I keep swinging. I’m whistling. I’m humming a song now.
I do not look back.
I whistle into the glaring daylight. I take a right into the parking lot. I take the dead guard’s keys and point at cars until one lights up and beeps for me. I enter her basic-white sedan. I turn on the gas.
No one will ask me where I’m going.
No one will ask me who I’m going to be.
Yolanda knocks
on her door
in the middle of the night.
It is a rapid knock,
the kind of heartbeats.
There is a rhythm to it,
a code. She has
no time to process.
Of course she nods her head.
Of course she opens the door
for her wider, softly,
so no one can hear the hinge creak.
Of course
she comes inside.