on a slab. a photo, in a file I wasn’t supposed to open.

your tongue, fat to the roof of your mouth, cheeks

gelatinous, eyes tied tight. skin, murky black

well-water. a clean, cotton

cloth draped just high enough to mask

excavation. I read what violence became of the un-photographed

stretches of your body, which neighbor alerted

the police to the trunk you were in. We still don’t know

exactly when we lost you. At your house, I counted

holes in the walls, searched for order in the splatter before

wiping it gone. I scrubbed and picked you from the fibers

of abused carpets, hoping to find a reason beneath the stains, but

instead I got bits of you beneath my fingernails.