Photograph Of A Missing Girl In A Barbershop Window Poem by Chris Tusa

Photograph Of A Missing Girl In A Barbershop Window

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You stand in the gray air,
your face a mirror reflecting
the dark shadows of trees.
Clouds drift in the brown water
of your eyes. A smirk squirms
in the corner of your mouth.
Behind you, a yellow blouse
shivers on a clothesline. A crow
hovers in the distance— a black flower
blooming against the cracked sky.
A red ribbon flutters in your hair.
Yet you wave carelessly
as if you don’t feel the wind
like a hand on your shoulder,
as if you don’t notice the rain-filled gutter
overflowing behind you,
the trickle of water like a wristwatch
ticking in your ear. I can hear a cell phone
ringing, an ambulance. My eyes blink
in the black waves of your hair.
A car bumper flickers in your blue dress.
It’s Thursday, May 16th.
Tomorrow they will find your pale body
deep in the brown hush of water.


-from Texas Review

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Chris Tusa

Chris Tusa

New Orleans, Louisiana
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