"Carrie says I should make my connections into a poem."

- Dennis Etzel Jr.

Sawed you there, through you there, girl whom I name

Carrie, shine of sun on bonnet-handle at that Walgreens

on 28th. A Friday night. It looked like you came straight

from fighting something that looked like lightning.

You were all scorched up. Tired look but with a residue

of glow, not in the family way, as they used to say,

and as I still do, since I venerate the old, but filled

to the heart with stars. Looking light years away, the way

you operated that Redbox: how can a girl seem so far

from Earth while at a Redbox? I was the girl in the super-

looking supermarket hat, with ashen face and hair of flax,

heart of gold and such. You didn't see me staring, not seeing

much of anything. Magician seeking magician's assistant,

my craigslist ad would say: I will saw through you any day.