No one was looking for you, but I guess I was meant to find you. 
It happens sometimes when you’re adventurous, curious, 
spelunking in roadside limestone caves or shuttered buildings
nobody has any business being in, but we go. 
Dare, we go. 

I want to believe that if I sprinkled water onto your bloodstain
shadow on the cement floor I could reconstitute you,
I could bring you back to us so I could know your name. 

No one was looking for you, but I guess I was meant to find you. 
Somebody’s daughter. Maybe somebody’s mama caught up in 
the life. They brung her down here for trade, 
you can tell because the torn condom wrappers say “ribbed for her pleasure.” 

The reconstituted you tells me you don’t know why things went wrong,
it was supposed to be a simple cop, but it turned into
something else she hardly cared about,
it would be over soon
and there was no reason to bring out the knife
she assures me. She was only fake fighting back, after all. 

She slides back down into her bloodstain 
her body taken wherever they took, quiet again. 
She bears no wounds of the holy martyr, pierced in the side by 
fated centurion, followers capturing the flood in a cup
prepared to write hymns for her future. 
She was only ribbed for your pleasure. 

I gathered wildflowers whose names I do not know. 
I knelt in a field and…
Maybe I’ll let you know when I’m ready to let them go.