Running Girl

“And the thug takes the girl over to New Jersey in the cab and kills her and rapes her and does all these terrible things to her in front of his prostitute girlfriend. The thug is so stupid, he uses her cell phone, and the cops trace it back to him.” — Bill O’Reilly

#1

Even walking two steps behind you there is still so much sidewalk and many eyes. Blue peacocks. “Don’t look at the stores,” you say. “They have cameras.” The video can capture what I see–the murdered girl riding between your shoulder blades, your thumbprints in her neck. Her white skirt and silver belt. Her red tears. Cold. That’s why you’re wearing sweatpants in ninety degrees. You’re ice. Because she is. You keep cracking your knuckles, the fig cookies smack, your tongue paddle mashing seeds and saliva. Since we left New Jersey you can’t seem to stop eating. Fruits, nuts, slugs. A dim sky hangs starless between buildings. Ticker tape Times Square. BODY OF MISSING NEW JERSEY GIRL FOUND IN DUMPSTER. News chases the lit up letters into the blank. Legs fishnetted, see-through girls walk by in bursts of perfume. Lilac. Rose. Diamond nose studs in the gray face of the night. You stink like homicide.

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