How, in the first place, did
they get torn-pulled down hard
too many times: to hide a blow,
or sex, or a man
in stained pajamas? The tear blade-shaped,
serrated, in tatters. And once,
in a house flatside to a gas station,
as snow fell at a speed and angle you could lean on,
two small hands (a patch of throat, a whip
of hair across her face)-
two small hands
parting a torn shade
to welcome a wedge of gray sunlight into that room.