the dead who do not make the news

rebel. a half-heaven, not enough.
try to rip off the wings, never mind
the sting, nothing to what the old bodies
knew. yes, they remember some. no,
they don’t want to talk about it. not
who are these dead? to you. dead reporters
what do they want? have no pull, we want
a front page spread, photoshopped lipstick, hot
like new blood. like a gunshot
what could they do to get it?
in a small town, not a rifle, not a squirrel
on the highway, not a back alley job gone wrong
nobody anybody make it her voice, give us
her words gave a shit about anyway
but a full-on somebody loved me somebody
was there with a flashbulb and steno pad
somebody wrote it down someone remembers
there are stranger things in heaven
than this it’s about the alley’s anonymity
from jump. that nobody even heard me fall.
what is the larger question here? the day I went,
seventy women in California notion: acceptable losses
blinked up at men with death scaling their teeth
through risk assessment you can evaluate the losses (human
lives or material value) expected within a pre-defined return period of
for the last time. and of us one, just one, scored more
where is she? than the page eight police blotter. I don’t
begrudge her. good for somebody
to get it. but I’m putting in for a return.
dig
the return’s a tricky thing. never sure where
or what you’ll end up. hope it’s somebody with pull,
somebody who’s somebody if you know
what I mean. but maybe you just end up
a girl again, maybe worse off than you were
is “girl” a strong enough word? is that what
we mean? whore? before. new scars
don’t make you new, to whom
are we interchangeable? you know. but this
half-way house heaven’s worse than a slap,
worse than a slow wound refusing to heal
put your hand here. feel it pulse? no doubt
put us here out of pity, I know
I wasn’t pure. wasn’t close to good but here
I’m bored as hell.
where do we go from here? maybe make me
a dog. something that gets hugged
regularly, gets to run. gets petted
what does this have to do
with romance novels? and fed, live in some
uptown brownstone with kids and a yard. not so small
I’d get kicked, not so big they’d make me work. just right,
whom can we (legimitately) blame?
some love and three meals a day. that’s a life.