Burns

The first girl lay stiff on the pavement
     letting the sun ache all over her
like the last tender misery.

Later, they'd call her "Sexy Face,"
    because she was desirous, demanding
of hands and a kind of credit.

She will paint a pink door on a cape
    to welcome strangers and to feel
like both the hunter and the stag.

Blotted brushstrokes and a straight-
    laced fury makes for a complicated
figure of tug and tug, but no war.

She calls graveyards rest stops 
    and doesn't want to die without causing
a ruckus or at least worshiping

herself like the original sun's strength,
   on the first day she splayed herself out
in the blankness and signed up for this pain.