• $300 like a goldfish down the drain.

    You're wearing your $300 dress on the bus home
    from the house where you wanted to stay.
    Your last resort is spread out
    on the gum-streaked seat. When you stand,
    you will look like slender coral dotted
    with anemones. You offered to take the bus
    even though he was going to drive you.
    You can still smell his cologne,

    as though it's water around you
    in this fish-bowl, bent-windowed bus,
    but you spent all your designated
    phone credit on your $300 dress,
    so you can't even call to tell him how your heart
    was a starfish that he pulled all the legs off
    before tossing the torso back to sea. But of course,

    that's not what he did. He extracted your heart
    with musician's fingers, wrapped it in a handkerchief
    to keep it dry, and put it in his pocket. And now
    you're wearing your $300 velvet-and-lace
    dress so that no one will notice
    you don't have a heart underneath it
    and you no longer need to breathe,

    but people on the bus--gulping for air
    and goggle-eyed--are looking at you,
    and you're certain they can tell.