with my contact number on it

and had gotten in touch with her.

Now she was calling to tell me

to come to her immediately,

so I packed and set out,

but after a few weeks in Atlantic City,

I felt irresistibly drawn back.

I rejoined the search,

until someone remembered me from before,

pausing, unable to allow that I had somehow

fooled him and asked why I had done it.

I’d run out of lies by then

and the energy it takes to keep

those multicolored balls spinning in the air.

I only wanted to be somewhere the grief of others

was as overwhelming as my own.

He didn’t understand,

so once again I made a narrow escape,

and found my sister waiting on the Red Line in Boston.

She hugged me, saying,

“We should come here more often,

just the two of us”

and I agreed, easing into the seat beside her.

“There’s seaweed in your hair,” I said

and she replied, “I don’t care. I’m dead.”

Then she laid her head against my shoulder.

It was so hot, my blouse burst into flame,

I told her I wouldn’t let her down, I’d hold her,

but like all the other times, I let her go.

At the next stop, I got out,

but instead of walking upstairs

and taking Amtrak to New York City,

I stepped into the path of an oncoming train,

because I preferred to stay in the underworld,

with all the other missing boys and girls.

FAIRY TALE

The first time I heard the story

of Red Riding Hood,

I was so afraid of the wolf

I dreamed he ate me for dinner.

The next morning,

mother found bite marks on my arms.

Even though I swore they weren’t my teeth,

she punished me for lying

by tying me to a chair,

facing the object of my dread—

a woodcut of the wolf in Grandma’s bed,

but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference

because the wolf had chosen me.

At twelve, I turned to model airplanes

and my dreams became a means of escape.

High above my body, looking down,

I’d find the wolf in my bed,

as if he too had been released

from some nightmare

and finally could sleep.

Eventually, I dreamed of girls,

but even so, my nocturnal emissions

often ended in visions of the wolf

dressed in women’s clothes

whispering my name seductively.

I came to him every time he came to me

just like the kamikaze did in nineteen forty-three,

when the United States was at war with Japan

and I was a pilot.

For some reason, neither of us fired at first.

We just flew side by side,

staring at each other

across the great military divide.

He wasn’t wearing goggles

and I swear I could see his eyes

gleaming like black opals

and the expression on his face

was the one the wolf wore