[Once there was a girl who believed time would carry]

Folks home as a horse does a child through a forest.

They say she grew ill or left town because of twelve things.

They dragged the river for her combed the forest but nothing

Came crashing out. Whatever the reasons were swim

From pursed mouths like spray from a fountain

Arcing through a shape that was there once.

We remember the statue but the soldiers they took it

Like everything else. Rainy nights drunks see it still in the square

Holding one hand in the air and the other to her

Chest like there’s something there not made of metal.

Those storms there’s no static no rain-smell

In morning no horse to carry no child through no forest.

Them milk-white drunks they don’t know.

One swears in those twisters there’s a kid crosslegged

In the funnel’s center, where it’s full still. That child

She sits still as a statue, mumbles ok, ok, spits.

Warm blood from her stupid teeth. Smiles big.

The thing about statues is crows shit on them

Their noses go missing. Someday nobody remembers

Who they was of. The thing about statues is they get took

For granted or in wars for paving. If they survive,

They’re museumed and no one can touch.

I say if she comes back and speaks she’ll say the reasons

Are nothing on us. The reasons half the girl she

Nailed under the floor, half the girl she became.

Half the fountain they erected to show where she wasn’t.

Them nickels kids throw in the water around her

Arcing just how veins branch under a good knife.