The Shirt

I don't wear patterns anymore—
a girl could fall inside them.

Describe it.
Gingham, no, I would never.

Light cotton with repeating lime
and white stripes.

Cheerful. Summery.
14 and breezy.

Naked on the table,
no nurse in the room.

The shirt folded on the chair, no gloves
on his hands inside me, inside

the patterns a falling, a falling and
a pile up, I watch the white buttons

the even space around the shirt on
the chair, his mouth on me, crash

of steps I am deep in
the wandering place of stone and canyons.

I am a dot
in the rows of white cast-iron cribs

asylum cries row after row too
close give me the mudbrick, the stone,

too close together I stand up his whole arm
tight around my neck he says calm

an assassin you don't tell anyone about this.
I don't look at him, I

hear the crashing, I shake my head,
deep in the caverns. I button my

lime shirt, now someone else’s,
thick with suffocation, closing

the door to childhood.