Lost City

Scott T. Starbuck

17-year-old Alana from Arkansas who was raped by her fourth stepfather
loved violets and old Westerns.

She lived in a school bus at the end of a dirt road
and had no visitors save the few who could be trusted.

Once we found a note in a bottle in nearby river
that merely said “Help me” leading to made-up stories

far truer than either of us admitted.
After drive-in movies, she sang Irish tunes,

and freckles on her left cheek lit a constellation
of Ursa Major. Later, I dreamed her hands were a moonlit pond

that could drown cockroach ghosts emerging
from my alcoholic father’s voice and my shaving cuts,

that my writing lived by huge propane storage tanks
that could explode anytime.