Investigation

I think of his fingernails
carving the outlines of nightmares into
the tender skin on the inside
of your seven-year old thighs.

You have floated all over this country,
appeared to strangers as an apparition,
left no blade of grass rooted in
the soil of your mind,
and still you do not know where
he hid the skin he stole.

I’ve studied the cuts in your flesh.
I’ve seen those types of marks before.
They’re left by lightening.

I imagine the weight that grows on your chest
every time you are reminded of that sizzle in your nose:
when you smell charcoal
or feel the heat of a bonfire on the beach.

Spelling tests and dirty socks crinkle,
shrink in the flames beneath your bed
as you’re standing two blocks down
in the cold, dripping with rain.

Lost objects, so lost,
you never knew they were missing.