The Woman Dies in This One

At this point in life, I was young and had not yet murdered anyone
and I was working security at this shitty dive bar
that served burgers until three in the morning.

She was the kind of woman you wanted just because she was an actress.
She did something else for a living and she lied more than anyone I ever met,
but in a good way.

It’s a terrible thing about being a man
but when you find a woman
who goes out of her way to make you smile
even when she is torn apart by danger
and sadness and poverty and neglect,
it makes you want her even if you wouldn’t have wanted her before.

She came in and sighed heavily and slid onto a barstool.
I didn’t know much about her except her name and face
and the way she blushed when I looked too long
and the way she twisted her chapstick
and the way that her life was drawn
to a tragedy like gravity,

She drank for a couple hours and no one bothered her and she left
and when she passed by me she gave me a hug goodbye
and pushed herself against me for longer than she had to
and her hands were burning me like the touch of people always did.
At this moment I would have smelled her hair if I could smell
but instead I was stuck there feeling those familiar needles on my skin.
I stopped breathing til she left, but she did not notice or mind.
She was beautiful and kind
and a few years later her husband pulled a trigger three times.
In a different universe she has four children
and they plant apple and plum trees and love everything,
but that is not the world that will have birds and flowers this spring.