"Carrie says I should make my connections into a poem." —Dennis Etzel Jr.
Sawed you there, through you there, girl whom I name Carrie, shine of sun on bonnet-handle at that Walgreens on 28th. A Friday night. It looked like you came straight from fighting something that looked like lightning. You were all scorched up. Tired look but with a residue of glow, not in the family way, as they used to say, and as I still do, since I venerate the old, but filled to the heart with stars. Looking light years away, the way you operated that Redbox: how can a girl seem so far from Earth while at a Redbox? I was the girl in the super- looking supermarket hat, with ashen face and hair of flax, heart of gold and such. You didn't see me staring, not seeing much of anything. Magician seeking magician's assistant, my craigslist ad would say: I will saw through you any day.
Copyright © 2012 by Ander Monson. Used with permission of the author.