with her blood coming slow to the surface and in a daze, she
picked up the phone and heard the labored, liquor-thick breath
of her brother easing over the wires. through the dark and into
her bloodstream, placing goosepimples up and down the acid-cracked daisychain of her spine. even with eyes closed
she could see him hunched in a dark sleazy corner with a cold
bottle between his thighs and a cigarette between his lips
glossy brown eyes blood-trimmed and barely open laced neatly
in eyelash bows. years and years ago she'd handed him all her
time in the bottom of a bottle of vodka and said 'remember me'
because i'll be the one wearing red at your funeral

bound eternal by heavy tattoo'd arms and an unshakable
sense of matronhood that kept her feeling holy, that kept that
hell-raise gospel on her mouth-- she whispered compliments
into the static licking his fingertips-- trying to taste all the hearts he'd broken because he did it so well, with an
elegance just wasted on a scrap of gutter-trash that barely
deserved the first red swells of love. but he worked hard for the
scars on his knuckles and the sneer in his smile and she
worked even harder to keep the stiff joints of happiness
well-lubed with endless admiration between hotel sheets and
cheap whiskey