Don’t look now, just lock the door
There’s someone on the porch outside.
Brazen-eyed and sallow, looking in.

Her right hand holds an abacus.
Her left hand holds a golden star.
And through her paper temples
the black blood whispers:
better call all your children in,
better call all your children back,
better call all your children in
or paint the windows black.

A holt of wooden markers grew
upon the roadside overnight
and queasy in the third-shift dawn
I found I couldn’t bear the sight
of such a claim upon the dead
within the view of Crawford town
and that is why I jerked the wheel
and with my truck I mowed them down.
She is like a baby
her hands are soft like a baby
her eyes are wide like a baby
her tears are free like a baby
and there are Arabs in the corn.