I perch on the moon’s edge and reel the girl up to me,
my fishing line of starlight hooked on her sternum.
She is seventeen, dreaming of the coast of Deauville,
hollyhocks and climbing roses, graduation caps,
her own dark red car with violet tinted windows,
auburn hair dye, and porch swings, and friends who wait
over dead phone lines. Her soft face is twisted in terror,
inner elbows pooling fear, old cannulas punctured
a North Star scar, glowing trajectory of my spite. 
In my arms, little mirror of mine, she writhes helpless,
shivering at any embrace that isn’t harmful. She pleads,
Will we end up okay? Suspended midair, this horror
of a question hangs, dreamcatcher snared in wind,
silence billowing through. We are the nightmares
caught above the brow of a sleeping child, the one
who existed before us both, unaware of her fate.