Ready Made

Here is the Black Dahlia’s body,

the two halves of her corpse split

into a darkness upon the field.

It is not you but the poem

whose face is invisible behind her hair,

as though it has been erased. Tutelary

image of a True Crime world.

It is not you but the poem

whose mouth goes on smiling too far.

Thus what seems like nature is cracked

skin upon a stretched armature.

But see? Her starfish is shaved. As sure

as the Mona Lisa’s moustache.

We go from a bright room to the dark

and feel the light creep close for a touch.

This is the mouth of the poem.

There is only the idea of seeing. The body,

field-dumped, framed in grass and road side.

See her turn over, minotaur to the grain?

This is the poem getting up, coming through

black and white history, her two halves

tortured by memory, the same way love

goes on, if we remember. It is not

you looking through the peephole, but

the poem, posed for the show. See?

It is the poem who is eating you.

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