Alice in Real Life

Her mouth says forgiveness and her eyes say,
“kill the infidels.”  She plays at being thirteen
and thirty, Jennifer Garner gone horribly,
horribly wrong and without the paycheck.
She says her love grows exponentially
then takes her shotgun to the furry woodland
creatures in the backyard, and all lawn gnomes
for a three-mile radius.  The neighbors know
about her, but there’s nothing can be done
without more money than they make in
ten lifetimes.  Such is the life.

They say her house is filled with taxidermy,
dead moose, dead rabbits, dead squirrels,
sometimes dead pets when the moon is right
because everybody knows it makes you mad.
In her basement there is a human corpse
filled with sawdust and not yet mounted
except in the necrophilia sense.  They accuse
but never out loud.  They demand
but never expect to receive.  There’s nothing.

The monsters she gave birth to became
minor politicians, sweet-talking their way into
homes and families of their own, Perseus
in love with Medusa, Hercules with
at least one of the mythical  beasts he killed.
She only had girls.  Everyone knows
women are half devil and half God,
depending on how fast they open their legs.
They say.