Poetry by Angela Thorne

I sit in the lobby of a police station

waiting for my daughter 

to report her rape

pictures she took of her own breasts

bruised with teeth marks

charcoal dark then yellowing

faded burned into my mind

she can talk about it now

that’s something

it took seven months

now i wait 

in a corridor

air moves through 

& a black-uniformed woman

hair pulled back 

a badge on her belt

smiles while she passes 

how are you?

tears prick the corner of my right eye

fine fine, I lie

& she badges her way 

through a locked door

to enter the space beyond

i look at my phone    

            

wait

check my email where poems pop

from a lit mag 

with writers named henry 

or adam or todd

musing on vertical light falling 

over horses hooves

or the consciousness

of a burning comet 

as it falls over a vast desert canyon

in the middle of the night

& whether it exalts

in extinction

& how we know and knew

and didn’t know

about various unnamed things 

at once

then i look up at my own reflection

through bulletproof glass

a metallic disk inset

for speaking

while my child speaks

in another room

to a detective taking notes

who may 

hear her 

& not hear

see her 

& not see