Jessie Janeshek Madcap/Outlaw Say an ideal town               black lashes, a horsewhip                 at the top of the closet plastic Halloween masks      vinyl apron costumes                 all I can do these days is absorb stories         after auditoriums       fevered horsewomanship                 and you laugh at my three chords and the truth. The time you dragged me onstage         with the man dressed like Frankenstein I wore a Liz Taylor wig       or a Vampira         so scared I pissed myself but everything was better then                 driving behind the pizza shop         a dozen roses that were postage stamps and how I used ketchup for Christ's blood         faded green and sat in the yard         in a dark plaid bikini the old man could have buried me there         under his Bradford Pear but I would have kept dreaming that you were a dead witch         who said don't admit process to the moldy inside of a roller rink.         Everything feels futile except working out my arms         which I never do        it's not ladylike and don't let my sick fingernails         stain over these pages only one lap up the hill         I associate with bloody underwear the smoke-stained man and his zither         the dog I once had and this time I promise                 no sequined biography         although I could ask anyone         how to climb out of this put myself to sleep             with mint oil and pills                 and reading the phonebook. There's no universal noir on this mudpath         and there's a blind cow that dies                in the back of the truck         and I'm too dumb to lie now         or reenact anything.