Rain saturated the city with houses
facing the rippling blue silk of the Pacific
until a hill slouched into a mansion
and snapped its columns like sticks of chalk.
Hill I drove past on my way
to another extravagant house
where a beautiful girl nibbled my ear
but punched my mouth if I ever said
the wrong word. I said the wrong word
and then my teeth were pink with blood
and tasted of copper according to her tongue.
Marble countertops in the kitchen
and a refrigerator like a miniature skyscraper
she opened and rattled out some ice.
By the pool her apology cooled my lips
while her body carved the same path
through turquoise water. When she climbed out
water fell from the edges of her body
like bits of glass. I knew better
to ask about the triangular scar
an iron left between her shoulder-blades
so I pointed instead to the mansions
perched on green slopes on the other side
and asked if she could ever live
where the earth fell and never rose again.