The story is an old one—
                                          a man wants a girl and so
 
he takes her. Girls are locked inside houses. Girls crawl
 
naked from dog leashes,
                                          Duct tape slapped across wet
 
mouths. I hacked my hair with garden shears, the limp
 
pigtails bright as snakes in the grass.
                                          A man sits in the jellied luxury
 
of watching, his shoulders rounded as beef rump.
 
There’s only so much shame
                                          a body can bleed
 
out in the yard where even cheap lights can’t shine.
 
                                          Girls do not speak.
 
 
 

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Anne Barngrover’s first book, Yell Hound Blues, was recently published with Shipwreckt Books, and her chapbook, Candy in Our Brains, co-written with Avni Vyas, came out with CutBank this spring. She is currently a PhD student in Poetry at University of Missouri.