Imogen
The air is unwashed.
She fills her head with words
and pink dresses, goes out to dance
forgets to ask her mother.
She's home by three
the cellphone cradled in her palm
like some big metallic bug.
She doesn't speak.
Her hair flat and still,
her pupils busy.
Imogen's tired of this house;
its doors cold and weighty
with winter, the curtains held
in two tight pigtails
and those light bulbs; tiny skulls
their faces flat and defeated.
She hides in the smallness of her room
watches the thrown stick
swallow the sky
with a pointed tongue.
