(100% natural extract, no preservatives)
When blood-flowers burst on the linoleum tiles
the daughter sneaks out amid the bitter words
Soon gone, like yesterday’s milk-curd dreams

She navigates under the swollen moon, humming
skirts the drunks, in their newspaper jackets
fishing for luck in stale kirsch brandy

The bridge with the kissing strangers,
her brother smoking silver ash wood
with the lovers;
he counts each heel-toe step, like an ariette to

The apothecary, its verbena tang sharp
and door hinged open like a cadaver’s secret
tonight she slips through its fish-pale belly

And with ten raggedy bills, she buys
a packet of wishbone needles
and a spool of candy floss thread
and a tin of balm, $4.67 – carefully
the daughter smears it across her
collarbones, light green on freckled skin

She thinks her heart is a chapel
adorned with silk roses; smiling,
the daughter strokes her dimes