AMBER ALERT

                    by Emma Bolden 

The missing girl’s got a mouth on her
                       secret as a flower unhaloed,
unholied her hair wears her,


                       an azalea bush curling a white
cul-de-sac, a house fencing in its own
                       century of tricks sweet


as the cherry glossing her teeth, electric,
                       rain tells nothing but hush
a gray gone static, the television’s out


                       of excuses laid like a napkin
flagged white, the sun’s bad manners reflecting on
                       a lake, a hundred rumors


licked by hunger, in the valley
                       is a molehill of a mountain stuck
he slid a beer across the bar


                       into her hand, an open, he came
into an awareness of the age
                       she was under, she was no wonder,


a plaid map of elastics snapped & since
                       he broke her the news
doesn’t mind telling


                       her as the story of his spark
close enough to a reversal,
                       a fortune, the slicked


down of an anchor at 5 pm, 6 pm,
                       10 pm dropped the news, dropped
a drama’s hook down the line until


                       the story caught in the mouth
of a girl gone, fishing for sin
                       up to the gills & the TV tries to warn us


not to blame the tempted, the TV says she looks so
                       lovely drowned in her own pretty, fist-
made, bricked & bloodied up against a wall



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Emma Bolden is the author of medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press 2016) and Maleficae (GenPop Books 2013). Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Pinch, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Her honors include a 2017 Creative Writing Fellowship from the NEA and the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose. She serves as Senior Reviews Editor for Tupelo Quarterly.