Tonight, A Woman

Asa Drake

I have a dream where a daughter's head appears rinsed loose,
smelling of Sunsilk. This, too, is a wish for more money.

Anything not fished-out of the body can be stolen, even the body,
not copper-tapped into the earth forgets which waters we're lucky to it.

Was that spotted horse particularly westward? Did deer or carabao
loom about you? And the rabbit, if it wasn't underfoot

would you remember to feed each animal mouth
as it came to you sourcing which river gurgles a family name.

In one crested city, try to own after a deity. For centuries,
have you rosaries or flowers? Have you textured grotto or waterbirds?

Do you fish-out that other city, where you forgot to pin down your idol.
The redemptive suffering you fed underfoot. When the procession starts,

your empty hands split open the head of a young boy-- too terrible
for the generators, the lamps give out and you carry him

back to his mother on a nightroad. Wash his hair in Sunsilk. This, too,
a request for more money. You already feel the fee coming.