and Jake tied silver ribbons
to my horse's saddle.

She put her hoof
into his shin.

I could see then from every direction:
Jake cursing and spitting,
surrounded by the swollen sunflowers
of my family’s ranch.

And there I was,
a white fleck against
the collage of evening blues—
an ivory button,
an eye tooth.

We got married and moved
to the desert, to this apartment,
and now I can only see what's in front of me:          

a card table, matches, a sink that drips
out of time.

__

Henley’s “Prom night in Branford,” is from her unpublished manuscript, Whole Night Through, a novella-in-verse that is loosely based on a compilation of true murder stories that occurred near the marine base in Twenty Nine Palms, CA. You can read more poems from this collection at the following links: [here] and [here].