1. Recipe
Take:

      one woman

      preferably young

      and pretty enough to sell papers

      with a name that sticks

      in your mind

            and the back of your throat 
Then:

      rape her

      kill her

      lay her out on a field

      as warning to all the other women

      young and not so young

      pretty or otherwise

      with names that

            you have never cared to know 
Tell them:

      don’t walk alone after dark

      don’t walk alone

      look just don’t walk at all

      you’re women

      where do you possibly have to go

            that’s so important 
After a week, or two:

      clear off the flowers

      smooth over the pitch

      no one wants to see that forever

            and men have other sports to play 
2. Museum Piece 
At night, walk with your house-key thrust

between your middle and third fingers.

Do not wear headphones

or lose yourself in thought

or laugh too loud.

Do not smile.

Text your friend your mother your sister

            your cat

when you leave the place

when you pass the library

when you cross the road

            and the other road

            and that one too.

Text every five minutes every two minutes

            every thirty seconds

            until you are home.

If the litany is broken

at least they will know where

to look for your body. 
Or

you can fold yourself in half

and half again and then once more

pressed neat as the handkerchief

that belonged to your grandmother

that you keep in the back of your bedside drawer 
Or

you can tuck yourself between

the pages of some half-read novel

like you did with that photo once

that you have never found again

or much thought about really. 
Such things remain

            untouched

            unspoiled

            safe

            as museum pieces 
Remember when we used to see them

in public everywhere

every day

            like they didn’t even know

                        how fragile they were

                        how vulnerable

                        how valuable

            like they didn’t even care

                        who saw them

                        or what was thought 
those girls those women

            we used to see them

            walking

            faces turned to the sun

            to the moon 
            walking away from us

            into the light 
3. Eurydice 
Maybe it was a joke

the last good thought

that crossed your mind that night

before what happened

                                                happened.

The best joke you never got to tell

            but it made you grin

            that shiny new joke

            the thought of delivering it

            on stage one night

before what happened

                                                happened. 
Maybe it was just the shitty icing

on a shitty cake of a day

in the shittiest ever banquet of a week

and you were already half in tears

            about paying rent

            and how your cheap shoes hurt

            and how tired and worn and cold you were already

            at the age of twenty-two

before what happened

                                                happened. 
Maybe you were simply

            making a shopping list

            trying to remember the lyrics of a song

            planning to feed your cat

            wondering who owned those footsteps

                        how close they were

                        how fast you could run on slippery grass

before what happened

                                                happened. 
But I hope it was the joke.

And yes I’m hoping that

more for my sake than yours

Because I need it

this small hope too thin

to weave any kind of blanket from 
I mean

did you even own a cat? 
Eurydice, I don’t know what to do anymore

with this dense and sour rage

that swills and swells with each fresh slight

I have vomited up so much of the stuff

thick and stubborn as clay

I pummel it with fists that will not uncurl

mould and shape a form

from terror and for comfort both 
one day I will know what to call it

one day I will write that name

            your name her name

            all her names

on a ricepaper scroll the size and shape of its tongue

one day I will send it slouching forth

            on its urgent wrathful path

            not once looking back

            at you at me at any of us 
and then they will see

all of them

what rough beast it is we have wrought