to my sister on the edge of the campus pool

i assume the checkered taxi driver
was her daddy, maybe her brother,

grinning like a jack-o-lantern
with a missing tooth.

annie's insides step out first, then her sweet smelling clothes--
fierce stilettos kill silver stone.

it's a faithless stampede to his window
for a quarter on the mercury line;

"call when class is over,
call when you're alone."

he’s always chewing, spitting, chewing
tumors like doublemint, like ice picks--

like the stinging long legs some great god gave her,

& spaghetti-curled hair-- cocaine freeze bleach.

like the can of diet coke and the cigarette

neighboring the handle of a pink umbrella,

while mascara runs like rag water

to pressed lips, cursing the rain--

the last lost lake in america
must have stuffed those egg white clouds with a swollen cork today.

i know she's got a moon in her pocket,
los angeles and bullets on her tongue,

skeletons, secret names,
just like I do.

we’ll both remember the boys
with flasks in hip pockets,

and the firefly dinner dance
on dirty sherbet patios.

the payphone chews her nerves,
the receiving end gnaws the wire,

“all is foolish except love and honor.”

i grind my teeth hollow at the union
while they eat their breakfast, while we let go.

nurse white, anonymous, concealed.