only a girl

but she’s only a girl in a red-black tanktop
singing her soul down the organ pipe tubes
watching it whirl in the laundry chute
cough up exhaust in the glow of a car
and come out tomorrow dripping in rain

walking her voice up the coffee-pot drainer
swirling it through the dishwater scum
dancing it through a plastic retainer
smothered by butter in a breakfast run

weaving it softly across broken looms
of silver-white forges and forgotten dreams
wasting away in nightmare sequences
of darkening music and late-night screams

diving through pools of spilled coffee streamers
making their way across glass tablelight
reflecting the noon off the windows and seeming
somehow to hasten the coming of night

she’s only a girl in a red-black tanktop
singing her soul down the coiling black stove
sparking its heated red flames into action
bubbling gaily within heated chrome

turning the water from liquid to vapor

single tear trickles down silvery spout