There were two exclamation points

Burned into her scalp like angry

Remnants of unprotected heat exposure.

Her eyes rolled wildly, two huge

Prophetic periods (announcing the end),

Lurching toward their sentencing.



No safety was to be found in punctuating

Her silence with sounds of desperation.



There was one close-parenthesis

Lingering in the shape of his lips

As he watched her swinging from one

Question mark to another, hanging

From the curve before falling

Another two inches, to the dot.



He was prepared to carve an asterisk onto

Her naked back (to mark the foot- Note of his Possession), but she had already

Surrendered her ellipsis points of identity

(She was always made up of what was left out)

To the inevitability of his backslash.

07/25/2003

Posted on 07/25/2003
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