Clinton Inman

Front Page Girl

Just a bag of clues is all you are,
Just a bit of bone, a cut of cloth,
Wild dogs took all the rest.
Like some grisly jigsaw pieced upon
A table they now call you Jane.
But I knew it was really you.
Sketch artist captured well
That girlish grin I thought I'd
Never see again until your
Composite un-identified you:
Front page girl, eighteen to twenty-one.
You know we searched for you
Day and night, night and day
Until they gave up and thought
You had really run away.
But I knew it took more than snow

To cover you that day not even
Your horoscopes could predict.
But from that cut of cloth the trail
Of footprints follow from fibers
You left behind upon the front seat
From the only sweater you had owned,
Though badly burned it could not hide,
And was more than enough to show--
Now your forensic fingers finally point
To the one who had really lied.

Just Like Us

From one to six we will let you play with blocks and sticks
then you will be ours. We will teach you to be our kind of Mensch
as you color everything chain link grey. We will erase all magic
inside of you. With picture ID and major credit and number 2 pencil
you will be like us pushing and shoving all the way up to barely alive.