Flat Line

Help her to understand
this scattering of light,
how blue travels in small,
short waves and the sidewalk
seems to swallow the sky,

sometimes

                and she is left

to wonder if her shadow
will ever free itself
from the slick surface
of the street where twice

she stopped

                breathing.

She wants

to know if this is what
she’ll carry with her, always,
scars of a stranger’s battle,
her body a map of someone

else’s mistakes

                and destined

Flat Line

never to get away, to lament
the cerulean, the gray,
a rust of metal pulled
apart, split like the sternum,
saw-cut cage pried open

to rouse the heart.