She thinks of skipping a stone across Deadwood Pond,
shifting foot weight on waters marsh edge, reed fence
forts hide the rose anklet tattoos from college sorority
Everclear binge night horror when he stood guard outside
dorm boys bathroom stall. She holds the flat stone loosely
between thumb and two fingers, forefinger massaging
the smooth rock belly. She wonders if witches really did
float, or why she ever believed in angels, or if Mom will
ever walk again, or if he'll rue the day he looked deep into
the leaving pool the night before they married, Deadwood
Pond's mirrored eye cataract, held tight to shore by bleached
wood boomerang and scarred with carved initials in heart and
senseless dread. The night he walked away for further happy
pie pieces dropped with grave precision along yellow brick
roads that forked and forked again, but didn't circle back.
She wonders, but can't skip the stone, so she sits on a
boomerang waiting for a bobbing witch to break glass and
burn roses from her eyes.
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