That Person

by Jessica Myers

I wouldn’t call that living, my father said,
his hands open, as if it were obvious
to my mother, who’d asked,
How can that person live that way?
She asks this because two nights before
that prostitute, red with blood,
knocked on our front door, Can I use the phone?

My parents made her stand outside, alone
while they dialed 911 and told the cops to hurry.
Blood pooled on the edges of our porch,
dripped down the side, syrup in a movie.

Eventually, the cops took her away.
My mother asks,
when she looked across the street.
Saw the prostitute’s face sewn in patches,
sitting on the pimp’s porch, proud,
a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other,
her arms draped with his as if it was meant to be.


Jessica Myers is editor-in-chief of No Teeth: a Digital Poetry Journal.