print previewback CHRISTIAN TERESI
Words in a Dead Girl’s Mouth
I return as father’s prayers that no longer try
To convince him the Lord is kind and merciful.
I cannot return by miracle, as the plastic invention
Working to heal frustration from daily chores.
And not when father eyes Venus, who always returns,
But distantly in the sleepless hours. I return
As mother tinkers with muted dangers she forgot
To explain. Someone let me leap from the porch,
And I thought this made me everything except a target
Lead obliges. Singing as an unending amputation
I always return. Even if I could, I doubt there is money
For such things. So, I return the well-known secret
Of the uninvited emissary. Each day, my parents return
To what pays them—just as someone paid someone
To fix the lead with powder, and some show-off boy
Struck it with a hammer. And it arrived as if begging,
As if excited for my blood spreading earnestly
As twilight beneath a burned-out streetlamp. 
Words in a Dead Girl’s Mouth