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Numbered

By Tara Bray Tara Bray

The girl was known for shitting in her yard.

I did so little for her. She was small, a dandelion orb

with ragged hair like an old woman’s burnt from dye.

Her face showed little sign of poverty—

it was her dusty shoes cut open at the top that told.

A bone look she’d mastered young, yet the curve

of her face was edible, like a rounded sparrow in hand.

She wasn’t mean, but did what she wanted—quietly,

with a lift to her chin, while I struggled to teach her anything.

I’d like to say I brushed her brittle hair, called her beautiful,

coaxed out sight words that dawdled on her tongue.

I dream of her spinning like a fairy dervish in my failure.

Consider this a prayer, a foolish one.

Source: Poetry (April 2012).

Biography

Tara Bray is the author of Mistaken for Song (2009), her first collection of poetry and winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. She earned an MFA from the University of Arkansas, where she held the Walton Fellowship in Creative Writing. Bray has published work in various publications, including Verse Daily, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review, and the Southern Review.

In his review of Mistaken for Song for Bookslut, Paul . . .

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