She thought about it often,
that panic-inducing compression
rising quickly from the nape,

(her father had an Adam’s apple)

giving way to a coldness
she would not know or feel
as she ticked and tocked,
the chair on its back,
staring up, saying nothing.

She wondered what her thoughts
might be of, those last that fled
as walls collapsed and neurons
screamed a red alert,
perhaps
Millie, her adopted cat,
pretty specks in the light
or whether God was fat or thin

(an observation of dust on the
crowded mantelpiece?)

She could not do it, of course,
knowing she was doomed by love
of fur and books and violin concertos,
sunlight, pounding rain and voices

(so many but they never touched)

to stay the loneliest, loveliest girl
in a town of ignorance and beer.

Still, she had the rope. It begged her,
so she shut it up in an ornate box
from inside of which it sang to her,
every full moon night,
of other sides,
those who would never betray
but understand and welcome
with open arms of love
and toast with salty butter.