Bent and Beat

living in a one bedroom almost shack

with her father

her mother long since fled into a honky tonk neon night

at the edge of the library parking lot

next to the railroad tracks

she walked the long blocks home from the high school

ignoring the kids with their own cars

past the co-op

stopping at the iga to pick up the groceries from the list she made

late the night before, as the 11:49 pushed past the living room window

dropping the bags at the house

before her daily trip to the colonnaded and ivory covered sanctuary across her asphalt lawn

where each day she takes a single book and finishes before just falls asleep

to dream uneasily, never awoken by the myriad of passing trains

but always by the drunken footsteps of her father coming home each night