WOMEN’S LIT by Anemone Beaulier

On the cover, another girl turns from us, hair furled
so we might appraise her neck’s arc, shoulder-blades
like scythes beneath her skin: so young, so thin.

We know from the first she’s damaged:
her pulse doesn’t quicken at the flight of a wren
from a palo verde dropping yellow blossoms

beside the pool. She can’t rouse herself for the few steps
to the tree’s protection, instead burning and burning
beneath noon’s incandescence.

Of course, the sun is her father. Or husband. No,
no, the mother who just wanted
to guard her from these men,

who hurt her to teach her
about suspicion and hardness,
told her she’s pretty but

should cover her clavicles and calves,
that she’s capable of wild love but should never give it.
Or maybe Mom said nothing, withdrew

her hands, so the daughter’s skin
quivers at the proximity of fingertips.
The girl never speaks, except in narrative confession

as she wanders a house where dust sparkles when
she twitches aside curtains  
or lies in a bath till the water turns tepid.

After painting her nails blood-red, she allows herself to be
fucked without meaning it, thinks of driving to Los Angeles
but naps,

wakes to shave her head, cut a thigh, act
at last, with listless violence,
overdosing on opiates,

tainting her man’s tea with poison,
lying languid as he chokes off her breath.
Anyone can tell you: it’s just

how
women
end.