my grandmother was a stunning woman with long natural nails and wavy black hair. she drove a cadillac-fast, swore and smoked and had blood red carpets that i played upon as a child. i convinced myself that the pool in her apartment complex held sharks that would appear if the shadow of the building crossed the water. she once spanked me for spilling jello on her white pant suit. she was attacked by locusts on a deserted road in texas. she could make me laugh like no other and loved me unfailingly. she was a rosie riveter in the shipyards during the war. she painted delicate & gentle birds on canvas.
now there are vultures sitting on fences outside her humble house and her hands are growing listless, feet swelling blue, kidneys failing, lungs filling with unfriendly fluids, cancer voraciously eating.
and it is never ever fair that the ones who gave what little they had should be deserted by their own lives.

every girl knows that some parts of ours are made to bruise and that coersion, force or just foolish hope present the willing partner but by the calm light of day the hidden tissues will heal while you wonder what will become of yourself and by nightfall you are ready to be injured again. and again.

at the ecstatic height of fervor surrounding the ominous appetite of the guillotine it became fashionable for young women to wear about their pale necks a thin red string and for banquet tables to feature miniature working guillotines so that the tiny waxen people given as party favors could be inserted and decapitated by squealing flushed erotic girls who would laugh and then suck the red sugar water from the headless dollies.