Terrible Things Are Happening in New Jersey!

after Maureen N. McLane

Walking home alone at night I hear the newspaper headlines
reminding me of suspicious disappearances in the neighbourhood.

               It’s fun, sometimes, to risk my life as a scientific experiment—
               to see what it would be like to die of my own stupidity. I believe

there is a street where I will one day receive all the names I used
to be called. I’ve spent most of twenty-two years looking for it,

               which is called religion. I used to have potential but now
               I give strangers my address & tell no one they are coming over.

The new boy calls me enigma, the old one crazy bitch.
I mean, call me what you want, just hold me while you do it.

               New Jersey is hard to shake. I have yet to wear good lingerie for
               a serial killer, but the newspaper tells me it’s only a matter

of timing. I write essays about metamorphoses & pay the same six
debts every week. Terrible things are happening! No matter where

               I run, the Top 40 charts follow me. Oh, to believe in something
               my teeth can sink into. Oh, to escape the life I built to escape.