3 o' 3

What did you gather in the night?

What �" with shaking, desperate arms,

did you place between your limbs,

between your teeth, between

the lines of your veins and in

the twist-up of your hair?

With only two arms,

how did you gather your addictions

of young-adult novels

and cocaine

in time to answer the door?

You plucked your daughter from her bed

like a single flower petal,

the only mirror left to remind you

in the smell of her shampoo

what spring was like,

what it meant to be innocent

with nothing to hide inside

the lining of your clothes

at 3 o' 3 in the morning

when there's a knock on the door,

someone asking in,

an officer or someone, maybe,

asking you for all you have

and either way they'll strip you down

and demand you give them

everything

It's dark outside.

The words are hers,

but they sound so much the same

as the ragged words

you whispered once,

the wonder of what night is,

of whether light can destroy it

or merely sweep it into the corners,

shove it into drawers and under beds

like monsters and cocaine,

and where do you hide

the monsters

when you have raised them,

when you're running out of light

and out of room,

when two brown irises

grow in the dark,

blooming wide in each direction,

her hair so dark the shadows consume it

as though plucked with every

she-loves-me-not,

only leaving her face

to glow in the sliver of moonlight

that scars her cheeks?

What did you gather in the night

at 3 o' 3

when the door

broke down

and a man asked you

for everything?  

Author's Note

Slightly mature content, but was unsure of how to rate it.