Ten nights later and I realize what you meant when
you shot the doe in the backseat with the .22,

stole the car, changed your name,
ironically in self-defense, making me

a hostage to one more woman,
the dead one and the other hers after her

Sometimes I’m nearly free.
Or, is that losing count?

We have countless bodies we bury.
Who’s to say there’s an end to the digging?

Incidentally, I haven’t told you yet,
When you woke this morning

I noticed on your left breast, south-east of your nipple,
a bite mark the diameter of a 2 mm caliber bullet.