T. L. Stokes

IF SHE TOLD YOU


If Alice told you all about the river
that came from her, seven and wounded,
how bright the color red can be, and how
she pretends her life isn't leaking and where
she hid the jeans,
 
that while she lay beginning to dream
about the softness coming down to her chest,
a heavy mumble and the bird trying to call
her away,
 
you could almost hear her thoughts
between the din of the normal day.
 
She keeps saying she wants to go with the sisters
to dinner at the Hunt's because the TV
is broke and theirs isn't,
 
and that's when they find half her blood
in the toilet she forgot to flush,
 
her heart as large as a hawk by then,
throwing itself against the only window.

T.L. Stokes lives on a river in a small rain forest at the knees of Cascade Mountains with a three-legged duck tolling retriever and a little black dog who was being sold for gas at Safeway. The author has been published by the 2River View, Snow Monkey/Ravenna Press, Ludlow Press, Ancient Wind Press, Pierian Springs, Comrades Press, UK, Taj Mahal Review, India, Gin Bender Review, and C. Stoneground Books, NY. Currently working on a book with photographers Dennis Carr and Carlton Ward, and editor James Carraway.