About “The Lisa Sequence”
Lisa Montgomery was born with permanent brain damage from her mother’s alcoholism while pregnant; was repeatedly raped and beaten by her stepfather and his friends; tortured and trafficked by her mother; and entered into a violent and sexually abusive marriage with her step-brother (at the encouragement of her mother) at age 18. She suffered from Complex PTSD as a result of these repeated traumas. Prior to her death, Lisa was held in solitary confinement and severely dissociated at the time of her execution, which was one week before Trump left office. — Paula Bohince
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Solitaire
One visible North Star, and acres of snow
genuflecting, the edging trees plunged into labyrinth,
and standing within it, part of
the natural world is Lisa, in the trance of
adolescence, with nothing but distance and a longing so monumental
it was a hunger, a motor, a roar, the one, the one
up there like a promise. Ice-seized branches cannot
answer back. There is no friend
waiting in spring beside the rosebush’s beginnings,
no dove, no laughing jay. Trouble, now, to remember snow
the way it was, with the mind’s paint colors muddied, congealed,
and no diamond or shine in the haze.
* * * * *
Gown
The holding of a cold bouquet
of very last days, Xs on the calendar, counting down
to the installation of the next president.
Wearing only a thin gown, shivering within the barren field of it, flowers
wintering, blown into the threadbare last
dress, gone decades back to the colonnades and spritely fountain
of the mall, trying on gossamer
for Prom, feeling in peach chiffon the future’s itch, the boy’s
approach, the nosegay in a fridge, the dark denim of him,
the yes, the friend looking on from her locker, you at yours, at the height of
prettiness, before the clang and complex lock, dizzy
with pleasure in the mirror’s heart.
* * * * *
Stay
Will you let me? We could keep on playing
in the cornfields, no one will miss us, the stalks we chop and gather
as firewood, the cobs that are our babies,
they’re all we need. We could live in these walls, or when
your mom calls, maybe I could follow. She could set me a plate, I won’t
eat much, I promise, I won’t be trouble, I could sleep
in your closet or in the garage, I could help with the chores. I’ll scrub,
I’ll stir, I’ll shut up when I’m told. No one will miss me,
I don’t need permission. I could stay here, mouse-quiet, tucked
away, forgotten. You won’t know I’m here.
* * * * *
Wave
If there had been one, or a few, the injuries may have been
survivable. There driftwood, there some junk
from an oiler to hold onto. The shore and its illusions kept shrinking
until postcard-small: pastel house
with a baby on the lawn, the affectionate husband, the taking
of the baby’s hand to wave goodbye to him. The notes
from the social worker said unendurable.
She drowned, but the notes don’t say when. We can guess. We can see
each wave as an attempt. To resist is annihilation, anyway. What she became
was entirely human, monstrous, more at peace on the breakers,
out there beyond us, than tethered to earth.
* * * * *
Last
Imagine the last shower, in bare awareness, the feel
of needles releasing the horror of last night’s dream. A last
waking to a flood of thoughts like the basin of some falls,
spray of memories like the last strawberries in their summer gleam,
eaten in peace in a stranger’s garden. The last walk,
drawn down a hall, the last read passage, perhaps of Jesus
healing Malchus, whose ear was severed in Gethsemane, the last
miracle before He ascended. The last hour waiting
for clemency that does not come, telephone deadly still, petition
ignored. Last shifting its meaning from final to endure.