To Thursday and Back

Her lips hugged the outside of every word she spoke and, in the nick of time, she managed to teach you to forget. Ghost lines danced across her face and when she smiled, something very far away sang so that if it was silent, you could hear. On Saturday afternoons, when she smelled like unadulterated regret mixed with the cheap perfume from the night before, the coyote uglies that stood outside her one room mansion howled at the full sun. Tea stained and weathered with leather trimmed fantasy, she stood taller than a tree and still nobody saw. Little birds once followed her past the old empty lot and led her to the treasure buried under the old oak. She was a wild sense of bewilderment and a loss of consciousness in one slightly lethal pill. To overdose brought about a moment of ecstasy and a lifetime of confusion. She was always a step ahead of the Windy City and a single waltz off the edge of desire. Her home was made of feather love and make believe and-- right before you realized that you knew her-- she was gone.