I’m here like everyone else.
Like my husband, Santana,
who dumped my carcass in the lake
and reported me missing.
See the coldness that coats his heart.
That day, I walk in and find him
with our four-year-old daughter, Melody—
her small mouth on his erect pipe,
struggling to accommodate
the virile beast in her noble nest.
Daddy must be pleased, she says.
He makes her do that on good days—
more on bad.
He does it to Jana too,
my baby whispers.
(Jana is our neighbor’s nine-year-old kid
with autism.)
I don’t have the courage to lift her skirt
and see the signs.
I’m horrified.
My thoughts are on a circus ride—
a long marriage, two older girls…
Is this a revisit of bad history?
I confront him, screaming.
He can’t expect me to just turn a blind eye.
Look—my questions tip off his craze,
because he beat me to death.
And he did it with his hands.
He chopped me nicely with our butcher knife—
didn’t even look twice at my red heart
on the chopping board,
sweating fresh blood.
He wrapped my pieces in a bag,
and Melody watched it all.
Mortified and dumbstruck,
she dashed out screeching into the streets,
where a speeding car knocked her lifeless.
We’re all at her funeral now.
