by Lightsey Darst

In 2003Lightsey Darst

Never say

you'll sell your body if you have to,

     because you'll have to, if

you say you will: God's rules.

And it's harder to laugh when you don't

         believe in god. Dimes

stuck in sidewalk cracks, a girl's

     got to buy mascara somehow,

     here's our last stop, bus radio

hisses like poisonous teeth.

I used to hear songs in the keys

of all the kisses I passed up. And everything that used to be

still is: Sunday,

       the country store, Spanish moss, a blessing

on that pretty head--

but you'll have to, my darling, my flower,

no matter what god's good girls can do.

I don't believe because

I want to die only once: easily, an azalea

     crushed by frost.