Coded Cruelty

she's a girl who has six or fourteen senses,
well-acquainted with intimacy when the touch is still a forked thought.

like a carp with a manifesto daydream,
he swims, slick,
through her.

the man in the church with the multicolored tie
and his worn-out sunday shoes,
whispering in english while his thoughts are written in latin,
a coded cruelty.

an idol of his wife, carved in a wooden block,
tossed in the salvation army's collection plate:
a chipped prayer for absolution,
a bargain struck with the cheap grace of the damned.

she knows.
she sees the hooks,
feels the barb,
but the river runs deep,
and she's already swallowed the bait. 

toss her a rope. she's grocery shopping
at the bottom of a dried up well.