She puts her heart in the basement
where she can find it later,
a puppy under rubble.
A man’s finger is the tail
of a tornado, slipped under the strap
of her dress, hook and tug, the roof
lifts off the house. Raze her.
When her mother calls the next morning,
she doesn’t tell her how much
time it’ll take to repair her structure,
or how much money, or speak
to the irretrievability of shards.
After the garbage truck has scooped
another dumpster into its blue arms,
upended all the secrets into his chest
and driven off, she watches
boys pick up the empties left behind,
toss them against cinder blocks,
training to crash and shatter
their way through the world.
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