Great, luv that. Here's another one I really like by Kim Addonizio, sharp and ironic and true:
DEAD GIRLS
show up often in the movies, facedown
in the weeds beside the highway.
Kids find them by the river, or in the woods,
under leaves, one pink-nailed hand thrust up.
Detectives stand over them in studio apartments
or lift their photos off pianos
in the houses they almost grew up in.
A dead girl can kick a movie into gear
better than a saloon brawl, better
than a factory explosion, just
by lying there. Anyone can play her,
any child off the street
can be hog-tied and dumped from a van
or strangled blue in a kitchen, a bathroom,
an alley, a school. That’s the beauty
of a dead girl. Even a plain one
who feels worthless
as a clod of dirt, broken
by the sorrow of gazing all day
at a fashion magazine,
can be made whole, redeemed
by what she finally can’t help being,
the center of attention, the special,
desirable, dead, dead girl. |
