The Mythology of the Call Girl
The nursery rhyme introduced us to rapture.
I disappeared into it.
one is decisive, two is conflicted,
three is a hunter or wanderer
When I opened the trap, my tongue was an apple.
I learned to count by tapping my fingers against my cheek.
four is a question, five is the key,
six heard a knock at the door
This is how I memorized the different parts of speech.
seven a loose tooth, eight was divorce,
nine boiled water to bring us forth
To learn the hunt, I walked beside the wolf in the woods
at night, her gray back high as my throat.
ten is the spinner, eleven is choice,
twelve left a message with her voice
Then I loaded my shotgun and bridled my horse,
set out in search of his tracks in the dirt.
thirteen is patience, fourteen a chore, fifteen the
mirror for sixteen, who went out dressed like a whore
But he was gone, along with the rest, only a few drops
of blood in his steps, each of them wounded, but free.
seventeen’s army of sweepers
helps eighteen to clean the floor
I made it out by following back the thing that was following me.
nineteen was bathed in the river and burned when her hair turned red,
twenty a prayer for the sinner, that the dancers won’t leave us for dead
published in The Northern Virginia Review, Volume 35: Spring 2022