As I got laid down to sleep
I remember a promise I was to keep

My neighbor Sally fwll in love
15
She anuck out the nights to intwine hands and carve in trees.
At 15 she swore me not to tell.

Corn grew short. Wheat plants died.
No one noticed her swollen breasts and bulging stomach.
Til a baby came. August 15th 1881.

By September Sally was dead in the creek.
Some said her lover crushed her skull. Others said a choive waded her in.

They found the body bloated on the bank – her eyes empty though her limbs be there.

I saw the body lying there.

I couldn’t breathe proper.

I saw the body. I crawled out the new room into the night.

I came to Colorado for a change – but my body had felt the same.

I crawled to feel moonbeams on my face. When I enter the ground it will be dark. I want one last time to see.

See aomething besides the walls come in on me.

I am a body. I lie here. I used to lie under their bodies. They did not keep me warm. I used to bruise under their hands. I had to eat. I did not need to be forced.

Now I am the body. I will rot in the sun. Now. I. Am. The. Body.

At least my sufferings done.