She is eleven, alone, slumped in a stiff black chair
at a black table facing a blank gray wall.

On the table a white china cup. Her hair is shoulder-
length, greasy, and her back has fragile, delicate

wings, visible because she's been stripped naked.
Even her bare butt is visible. But she will not

break, even though she knows he's coming for her.
Out the open door, she hears him knifing willow

whips over by Goose-Eye Creek. Soon he will be here.
She grabs the cup, throws and smashes it against

the wall. Might as well earn what she will get.
Soon he will bend her over the black chair. She will

be mute, unresponsive, will not reward him as she
begins to plot her revenge.