His ordinary bedtime questions—why she never pierced her nose,
whether she might ever like a tattoo, to color or shave her hair—
fill her with a rage she knows is dread in drag. Whoever she is being
compared to is sending tendrils up the bricks and to their room.
Stepsister nightshade in a cartoon gloom. She knows she knows better
than crude jealous spew. It’s something Betty Boop might do,
pre-Code—envision the fawltless wival and, supersonically,
squawk into a paper bag until the panic unloads.
She has to get a grip. It’s the Anthropocene! She’s in charge of this account.
Her pillow is a book she hopes she’ll master just by upward pressure,
cotton case to scalp. The osmotic eating of crow: it’s the down alternative.
To be everything to someone is a one-horse town. It’s lonesome as a dove
and there’s no one around except her playing stick-and-hoop
or self-sheriffing her dreams. She’ll have to let this backlot Deadwood go.