for the preteen girls
I was 12 when I met him
14 when I got pregnant.
Everybody was scared of Rex
Of course I was
And i still am.
We drink well water and
We have for many years.
We drink lead bullets
In our babies’ guts:
Why they end up killing or killed.
Rex put me in a trailer.
Me, my melon stomach,
And the woman before me.
First she was a dusty old jar
Then she turned into my secret.
He pressed and pushed me down
Matted me into one small fleck of space.
All my thoughts and feelings
In the seconds between his movement.
A blink beneath a black eye.
Alice, the woman before me,
Said we are as good as dead
So we might as well try.
Our Chief of Police
Told the men with itchy shotguns
To form a neighborhood watch.
Our Chief of Police
Mumbled, hands are tied,
Not enough evidence,
I know he’s a bad seed but.
Our Chief of Police told us
He’d be taking the long way home
Tuesday afternoon.
Might not be back in the county till
Well after sundown.
Of course I didn’t know this.
Tuesday I sat in Rex’s truck
Outside Wilson’s
While he got drunk
And played pool.
I sat where he set me.
I heard the yelling.
His dog nosed my elbow.
The action bubbled out of the bar,
Into my eyes.
Rex tripped out,
Squinted,
Swung a six pack like a scalp.
He started the car.
Lifted the Coke can in the center console
To his lips to drip dip spit into.
The men came out in a blink.
I remember the noise of the guns
And how my knees looked
When I got up from crouching
on the floor of the truck
(crumbs stuck to them like scabs).
Rex didn’t crouch quickly enough,
But, they weren’t aiming for me.
45 witnesses, two shooters,
One woman left who cares to see justice,
And a useless DA who doesn’t care about my baby.
I am happy he is gone.
Although I don’t believe that
Was the last black eye I’ll ever have.
