Displayed like small paintings of horror.
Unearthed by bulldozers; revealed

from scrub, and ditches –
the face down nakedness of the form.

And something in us wants this.
A re-enactment on the night streets,

the men behind the cameras blowing
in their hands; the parked cars and

the lights, the storefronts
showing their bright interiors still open.

(To see the detective triumph
the girl must die first – the strong

female detective triumph. We stare
at her lips as she stares at the girl.)

Something in us needs to hear
the sound of footsteps; the CCTV

footage. To play her back then forward
to see her last moments, to wind her

and wind her. To wear her out.

Wes Lee

 

Wes Lee lives in New Zealand. Her latest poetry collection Body, Remember (Eyewear Publishing 2017) was launched in London as part of the Lorgnette pamphlet series. She has won a number of awards for her writing, most recently she was selected as a finalist for the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize 2018.

© 2019