The executioner loved bondage

and the star opened her wrists

onstage while the supporting

cast drank behind the screen

I was only a voice, covered

in black, a small stitched rip

in the shoulder, mended quickly

When she used her eventual

skills of needles and leverage

of string to suspend me

She, of course, was always

important like a flashlight

near a cliff on a dark night

Things, though, moved quickly

off-balance, eventually ending

in the rain beside a flat tire