Grand Mal Seizure – Vandal Poem of the Day

There’s however it is you call,

& there’s whatever it is

you’re calling to.

July, I sew

my own dress

from calico & lace.

August, they take it

off me in the Colony,

trade it in

for standard-issue

Virginia cotton.

Not much room

for my body in the

heavy slip; maybe

that’s the idea.

For awhile the abandoning
was rare & then it was not
& would never be again.

Imagine you are
an animal in your
own throat.

The dormitory has a pitched

dark roof & a high porch.

We are not allowed outside.

Instead, we go to the window & make

a game of racing dogwood blossoms

knocked down by the wind.

Choose your flower as

it falls & see whose

is the first to hit the clay.

I beat the crippled girl every day

for a week. The trick is to pick

the smaller petals.

Most nights, they knot
the bed sheet in my mouth
so I will not bite my tongue.

Lay out on the pine floor:
rattle your own bones back
to the center of the world.

In the beds, the smell

of kerosene & lye.

The girls wake themselves

one after another:

spasm, whimper, whine.

Outside: cicadas.

In the distance: the bighouse lights.

Another truck comes loud up the road

bearing another girl.

There is whatever it is

you’re calling to. There is

however it is you call.