The Woman Who Bought My Car

See Wanda in the trunk!
Snuggled up in blankets!
Curled up like a baby!
With legs like hardened plaster!

Wanda owes me money;
now she is for sale.
If I can just get this car
to start and steer it
with my bloodless hands
tingling and the heater
broken and us both so cold,
if I can just get us home
and park it and rig up
some kind of light so
y’all can peer in at
the blankets and the blood,
and if I can find that pink
padded Coat hanger I used
to prod her frozen form,
I’ll make a magic marker sign
that says “One dollar a poke.”

But Wanda won’t do right.
She’s done crime and time
and too many men who…
Now that they’re through
with her, what do I do
with her? She’s heavy and
smelly and stuck to the quilt
like she wants to stay hidden.

She won’t talk either,
won’t say how she died,
who lugged her to the trunk
and joyrode the car ‘til it
quit here at the mall. But
that doesn’t matter. I didn’t
know her well, you not at all,
and you will accept my story,
not hers, to satisfy your
pornographic urges, since we
all are each other’s customers.