The Needle and the Thread

 Thread the needle
and feed it through
the girl’s mouth
I will stitch you shut
so you will swallow the truth, she says to herself

She wears the father’s story
like a wool coat
She will not believe the mother
She will not open the wings of the coat
to know what is real

No one can build a safe home
All homes are safe and unsafe
Eyes may say I never saw you
though they were always open
They saw what they did not see

 He said he said he said, the girl says
I believe him, she says
I am like him
I am more like him than the others
though he thinks the others are more like him than me

 I am invisible, the girl says to herself
She says to herself, You aren’t here, I cannot see you
If I cannot see you, I cannot hear you
The mother sits with the father’s can of gasoline
and squeezes an arc towards the front door

 I live inside a book, the girl says to herself
We are all alive inside a book
That’s what you think, says the front door
Where are your hands?
Where is the needle and thread? 

Where is the mother? asks the book
Dead, the girl says to herself
Exactly, says the book
Ashes ashes, says the front door
we all burned down

From Mobius, a manuscript in progress. First published in On the Seawall.