Just as dawn breaks, I can see
the tiny pitted holes about her body, the eyes
of guilt. I’ve imagined these a thousand times,
never seeing them,
not like the streaks of reddish water I’ve woken to
early in the morning, slithering between the pavingstones.
The tips of the grey houses, the church—
the consummate numbness the Countess must feel, and I’ve known her.
I knew her in her youth, her fitful rages, now her calculated calm—
the days after the poor girl’s burial, the moist Earth
filling those tiny holes.
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Sara Toruno received her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside where she was the Associate Fiction Editor of CRATE. She now teaches English at San Jose City College and lives in San Francisco. Her poetry has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, The Common Line Project, Ginosko, Temenos, Monday Night Magazine, Artistic Rights, and Perigee.
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Sara Toruno received her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside where she was the Associate Fiction Editor of CRATE. She now teaches English at San Jose City College and lives in San Francisco. Her poetry has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, The Common Line Project, Ginosko, Temenos, Monday Night Magazine, Artistic Rights, and Perigee.