Wisconsin Girl

 She was a Wisconsin girl,
white and ugly. Her eyes
were convex and brown
as a mudslide. Hair seeped out of her
scalp, changing
in color from rat fur to bleach.
She had skin like death,
pale and sick. One coat she wore
had dark stains in its leather
and loosely fit her rail shape.

Every Saturday at ten a.m.
she ordered coffee at Don Mill’s Café.
She was never late.
The waitress knew her well
and brought her two creams
without request. She sat in silence
most days, with blank looks about her
face and hands. Her coffee always got cold
while she stared into the cup.

On Sundays, she sat in the front
row of the Celestial Deliverance
Holiness Tabernacle to be as close to God
as the preacher, and she sang
like a drunkard wailing in the streets.
Her voice was like knives scraping plates.
During communion, the others present
prayed that she would leave.

Friday nights she cried,
had no friends aside from
a bear and a doll. Her family
might have loved her,
but she didn’t know. An ordinary girl
would have taken her life,

but she lived for that coffee,
brown and beautiful,
so unlike herself.