My smell wipes across the thought of him. Crying in a pin stripe business suit. There was an accident. Perfect bodies lose perfection like melting ice. Crowns of thorns are passed out, metal trinkets to place in private. Kiss the blood rolling down. The bus cannot pull away. The circus is canceled, a cancer spreads on a house not so big, not so white with snipers on top, death inside vulture gloves. A golden crown on our leader, putrid in thought, his expensive soul, made, no blessing. Thinks he's King George carrying only half a lung, long dead, a stopped heart. He doesn’t dance. He snuffs out the dancers. A child's broken legs carried by his father swing slightly. A dusty place he doesn’t visit. Might scuff those shoes. Get dust in strange hair. His dry fingers of so much discussion never wave at me, the boy. I put my body into the fence outside his house. I watch the homemade signs like familiar birds. I'm still bleeding.

Sarah Lilius | I am the author of four chapbooks including the two most recent, GIRL (dancing girl press. 2017), and Thirsty Bones (Blood Pudding Press, 2017). Some of my publication credits include Drunk Monkeys, the Denver Quarterly, Bluestem, Tinderbox, Stirring, Luna Luna Magazine, Entropy, and Flapperhouse. In 2016, I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I live in Arlington, VA with my husband and two sons. My website is sarahlilius.com.