Death soaked their clothes
like bonfire smoke.
The first time I met her,
the neighbor’s teen daughter,
was mid-hamster burial,
her fingertips caked with dirt.
“He died last night, I guess.
Hope it didn’t hurt.“
Her frankness almost comical
(almost).
Four months later,
the family’s two Boxers
die of neglect-
a lack of sunshine and touch,
but no bruises, no blood,
(so no charges). It’s best
to forget.
In December, the daughter
gets a pickup truck,
asphyxiated-blue,
paint-job rough,
a frame that shudders when
the engine runs.
With the new year comes
another dog.
This one stays locked
in their RV and bakes
on an oddly hot day
late February.
The whole block reeks
like burning leaves, like their
morbid pyre smoldering.
In May, I leave,
escaping back-county for
city-sparked vigor.
Not a year later,
my mother calls
to tell me how
the girl swerved off
a gravel road,
hit a tree,
and flew,
ejected from the driver’s seat,
from that pickup truck,
death blue.
It’s terrible.
Unfathomable.
But I think we always knew.
Death soaked their clothes
like bonfire smoke.
Could she smell it too?
pm poetry 