Michelle Kern

The First Visit

Somewhere above the garden quick steps make noise.

He claps across the room in his slippers.

His hands are cooped inside a gown.

His feet wander toward the Sound.

His head opens. The jar of his head.

I'm telling you the story of the long-lived gull.

The gull had on his lip a handlebar mustache.

As seen from above the seagate iris.

The gull sprung upward with starfish between his teeth.

Their shadow turned itself on the wall.

The image of a spoked wheel.

The starfish fell against rain.

Against the shade of the boy passing down the corridor.

I can hear him say, Bring me my coat my shoes my money

Prayer

Sneak out through the main floor entrance/exit when the front desk is hushed and empty.

The security guard is upstairs fixing a toilet, or screwing in a light bulb.

Exit is also possible through the basement door.

The door does not have an alarm.

The basement door does not contain an alarm that would be triggered by you exiting the door while wearing a Secure Pass anklet.

The housekeeping staff leave the basement door ajar.

Go through the back door of the physical therapy room, exiting to the parking lot.

The physical therapy room door contains a panic bar that will trigger an alarm if the door is opened.

If the door is opened or closed while the panic bar alarm battery is dead, the alarm will not sound.

Funeral

I see the girl watching a half a dozen snakes on a large sheet of paper. The girl knows it's a rope. I can't say a word. Coppery light drags on the black surface. The dry skin under her fingers. She makes a bunny ear with it. She takes one end, sticks it through the loop, pulls both ends. When do I wake? In dawn with deep, fast moving water. Why do I return?

A Late Freeze: The Girl & The Mare

The girl's suspended in the air, hovering above the mare. Their movements, slow at first, gradually become faster and more dance like. There's an easy give and take. It's only when she drops the reins that she loses contact with the mare's mouth. I begin to clench. Her legs and arms tensely raise, about to fall. I want to tell her Heels down. I want to tell her Get back your stirrups. I want to tell her Your body is drawn towards the pond that froze over early in the season. I turn my head suddenly, hearing in the distance, the sound of frogs bleating. At night I dream of the girl chipping thousands of frogs out and throwing them at me.

The Red Snowman

It's hard to know why the girl's laid out on the classroom floor alongside eroded computers. I can't remember what didn't happen to me. Several buckets catch drips from the ceiling. She's reading the book In Cold Blood. Ivy grows on abandonment. Dry paint collects on the windowsill. The girl throws the book down, and scoops paint chips into her muddled hands. In the corner of the hard wall, she splatters paint chips onto three tacky circles. Silently, she trembles. She overpaints the red snowman with running tears. Even in her silence she says how hard it is to not look away.