i'm attached to a crime like the teeth of a saint

by Halie Theoharides

if you’re good for a crime okay i’m with you if you’re good for a dark drive if you’re good for torn up letters if you read the letter already and destroyed it but the information is banging around in your head like a threatening in­law like a wild goat wagon if you’re drunk on a bridge and you look down at a girl if there’s a girl in a headlock and the girl is too happy if a jersey’s retired if a name is replaced if you’re toasting the strangers did you take all my feelings if your remorse is okay if murder by icicle if you’re flipping a coin if you sneak into my house if there’s a condom on your windowsill but no furniture in your room if there’s a girl alongside you with a suitcase and miniskirt if there’s a ticket in your hand and the ticket is to here if there’s a couch that is burning you burn the hooker shoes too if there’s a forest that’s crashing if there’s a call from berlin if there’s a hippie medallion if there’s a staircase of ladies if there’s a visible humming if there’s a speck of a town and you left it forever if there’s no concern the devil calls it a problem but i have to keep going fighting boys from revere push them down in a parking lot never go to a doctor there’s a part here that’s winning there’s a secret drawer there’s a ring and a blindness if you carried a lie it was some kind of accident if there was a chest buried under an oak and inside of that chest if there was a graveyard and you stole all its flowers if there was a window and you broke it and you taped it up if there was a windowless room if there was blood on a t­shirt if there was ever a time to take me aside in the dark

Halie Theoharides

Halie Theoharides lives in Western Massachusetts and studies poetry, wildlife, and other mysteries. "Into The Leaf Gloom" was written in response to The Forestwife by Theresa Tomlinson.