Inverted parasols of anemones
in Tuscan fields
Scarlet epaulettes
on the blackbird’s wings
Crimson of the dress
to catch the eye
of that boy at the party
Heard my younger sister
in her room scream
She’d pushed down
on the trash
forgetting the spent light bulb
It shattered cut
I ran in found her kneeling
over her wastebasket
to keep the blood
spurting from an artery
in her wrist
from staining her carpet
Yelled for our father
So much blood I yelled louder
He came bound up her wrist
rushed her to the ER
For weeks flashing lights
though there’d been no lights
smacked me to reeling
Stop signs were the color
of sea after the shark
Her pink carpet fizzed with blood
What the fox leaves of its prey
in the new snow
