INTERVIEW WITH A WITNESS, ALL PARTS PLAYED BY YOURSELF

We live north of the docks she says, and gestures to the body
(its smallness brushing the world
like moth-wings on skin)

with her fine-boned hands
with her matchstick hands
with her darting hummingbird hands

but don’t quote me on that

let me tell you about that night
and all the dancing
tranquilizers ransacking the house

(her eyes are empty hallways)

off the record, of course

(her eyes are planks)

let me tell you about the boarded door

you think of your childhood home, how the ladybugs gathered in ceiling corners
against the frost, preferring the slow, warm death of your home

the husks they left so like houses gutted by fire

everything’s replaceable I try to say

I’m poor too I try to say
my voice flailing small against the door

I’m poor too I whisper I whimper admit I

rejoice I’m
poor too

Rachel Custer lives and writes with her lovely partner and their even lovelier daughter in northern Indiana. Her full-length manuscript, [nothing happened that was worthy of poetry], is forthcoming from ELJ Publications in early 2017. She also currently reads poetry submissions for the Indianola Review.