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Girl in Two Pieces

Elizabeth Hatmaker

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York

Girl in Two Pieces by Elizabeth Hatmaker Copyright 2010 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN: 9781935402596 Library of Congress Control Number 2009910010 BlazeVOX [books] 303 Bedford Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 Editor@blazevox.org

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PROLOGUES
so lets fall in love with hypotaxis or w/her before she was nothing girl.
1. What can the poem do? Its easy to take issue with true crime books, getting blood from a stone, arguments of dew and blood. Sediment spills through the earth. You just stepped on a dead person, done by the government in 1877, 1917, the barest 1947 for crimes against person and property, a soldier, a father, a stranger, found wanting, a body caught in infamy, pressure on the joints without screaming. The books dredge it, those rocks that make up the wrist as jewels. Case: One Elizabeth Short, 1947, L.A., young, pretty, the story goes. Teeth rotting from the day she got off the train candle wax fillings, though everyones teeth were rotten, what with the dentists only just back from the war, lonely like dentists are thought to be, more so even. I'm lonely, so fill us all with silver and diamonds, mine it and stick it in. (Though not Elizabeth, though I will contend that bad teeth made her no less beautiful.) You know the myth bad bad pretty girl, disappearance, no one sees, empty lot, dewy grass in the space between her cut halves, speculation. A composite of unearthed parts. Destroyed. All of it the young girl from Medford in the East, the sense that all good soldiers come back good, that daddy love is strong, a bit of the intention called love.
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They find her in the morning, two white halves, a bloody smile, blankness and vulnerability growing stiff on the grass. We witness a social death. Her days of missing were agony this we know-- but agony also to our eyes at seeing her discarded. Done. Its easier to see our own agony, philosophically, like the strain of a nickname we had for a girl who didnt matter, knowing we wont call that girl by that name ever again. Or we will call another girl that name and will feel momentarily sad. Or were remembering the wrong nickname, or she never trusted enough to tell us the right one to begin with. A girl is no poem.

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2. Subject: Robert Red Manley, first official suspect Anxious as any of us would be. No known aliases, Section eight discharge, new wife new baby new job, anxiety always seeks answers in patterns, new new new in loneliness flashing in the dark He was the last to know her and see her alive as she bounded through the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel towards the door. Went mad in the fifties, nonetheless, and shot himself, truthfully, on the anniversary of the day he dropped her off. Note for the files: Hollenbeck Police Station-- A sad photo with his wife Harriett, hair in kerchief, looking up at him, questions under wraps. After, she goes to bed every night with Dahlias wet grassy space between, hears a car motor turning over in the early hours of the morning as her hand slips over the sheet. When she cooks, she feels the glint of steel before she feels the pain. At the store, she hears the whoosh of fabric against the frame as it speeds to night.

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3. OK, maybe Ill argue Whores a funny word, growing in population and infrastructure all the time. In 1947? Burger, a coca-cola, a ride for a few miles, maybe a trinket from the Pier seems O.K. economic exchange for smiles, no loneliness for a few hours, someone to run ahead then look back for you, eyes scanning the crowd for you, no really, my friend, for you. Hey sweetie, you need a drink? Sure do. Whats you name? Elizabeth, but its Beth for Short. (Laughter.) Whats so funny? Well, ya see, well, its just that my last name is Short, so you see. . . . Oh sure, yeah. . . I see.. .. Funny girl. And it goes. A date? An assignation? Shes hungry, sure. She was hungry last night and shell be hungry all the nights until her death. Youll be hungry for all time, youll eat and eat. One night. Twenty nights. Maybe dating means not being hungry, so the rest of us are whores. B-girl. A-girl. D-girl. And that dont spell love to anyone I know. But let me circle again as prologues do.

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4. Subject: Orson Welles, an unofficial suspect, fat and sassy. Smart boy scares America about aliens, Rosebud was, according to rumor, Marion Daviss labia majora. Yes, I know you know. Scandal loves a smart boy, loves him like a song that is comfort. He was in and around L.A. in late December 1947, directing the funhouse scene with Rita Hayworth, The Lady from Shanghai in mismatched lady parts, remembering the old saw-the-lady-in-half trick from the carnival. The man to know, going mad, losing backing, on his way out. and then temptation comes to the weak softly and without complaint, listen as my voice develops some pathos here. The words of greeting lilt and we strain to hear them coming-- hope and smiles and all. (Though here I merely speculate on an unlikely fantasy) It would be nice to think so. This isnt really an argument at all. Maybe Ill come back for you later.

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5. Subject: Franchot Tone. No one thought he killed her, maybe he fucked her. Maybe thats interesting too. Franchot Tone (actor) Joan Crawfords ex. before the cola king. mad best friend in Phantom Lady (Universal, 1944), small-time but eating well. Maybe he fastened her up with wire, kept her up and around. took her in his mind, twisted the wire ends, tried to hold bone to blood, wax filling to tooth for a while longer. A nice night at that. Maybe he bought her a decent meal, with a baked potato, chives, something to stick to her ribs. Gotta buy a girl a nice steak. A napkin on her lap and he reads to her in a poetry voice from the menu. Talk of the East Coast, Miami. Polite. Affable. Of course she smiled at him, and of course we all like her on this night. She could be had for a song. She could be had and still be that song, performed by a lesser band.-the L.A. Melody Boys, the Johnny Juke Orchestra, the modern sounds of Eddie Raven and his Honeysuckle Swingers. One night only then on to Riverside. Music is made for this night, for side dishes and for jerks like us. It echoes later. We pretend it matters, the sadness of our intentions, our hesitation marks on this page.

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6. shes not just a song shes a film, shes the loop and the rhetorical technology the plot and the material. She is this loving of dead girls, catching them unaware in the flash, dazed in the coffin, stumbling in the dark looking with us to see the arrangement of their limbs. Tech questions: Did they fasten her back together? Which young girls look like her? Did they sew her face up right? Did they get the embalming fluids right? Is she leaking into the earth as we speak? Or did they leave the space between her halves untended, exposed? E.A. Poe the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world from The Philosophy of Composition.

Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder optioned via the Edward Pressman Film Corp. for David Lynch? (smart boy, smart movies, scares America, a severed ear and the disruption of the American family, daughters gone wild, he options the story without result) No film to date. The Black Dahlia, director Brian De Palma, based on the novel by James Ellroy. The fake screen tests were judged the better part. Rated R. Available on DVD and Blu-ray. Streeted last winter.
A father will see De Palmas movie with his daughter, will turn to her and say, That would be you if you were interesting and what can she say? Maybe she knows shes already the echo of another woman, of nights before, shell know.

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Maybe she suspects her father will run away, will leave her flat, leave his car on the bridge fake his own suicide, hate her and disown her to search for that night. This is a directorial approach. A hesitation of patriarchy. Some poor actress plays the Dahlia. Maybe she gets that worst of daddy looks No, youre not right. They use her anyway. Shell realize one night: The Dahlia was a loser, a jerk in the vernacular of girls we love.

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Coda: Dahlias father, Cleo Short, was cleared as a suspect early. Though he was a bad sort, a deadbeat dad, a failed miniature golf course designer from the East. No really, hes failure at every symbolic level. A failed pattern. Not important enough for incest or the hate that comes after. He walked the streets saturated by his girls blood and maybe his shoes sunk down into that earth. Or maybe no ones shoes will hit bedrock again.

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ON SEEING HER
Look straight down and you can take anything see downy still. Girl under wounded glass. We need photos. No shadows mistaken rise and fall no foam no glisten. The grain of a dog poised at the genitals Shattered gem takes a powder. No sunshine no hide. No fur no molecule of grain howling up. Dont you dare smile. See cuts in the face dont make a laughing skull from above. Humiliated by cruel shadow the lightning of darkness That. See See See soft lift of nose. Clean widows peak muscular care and clouded iris. Ownership of structure. Pride without glint dull grain scream agony on the retina. Its the angles that kill. A grim structure is physical humanity canted. See the arrangement
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the democracy of wide angles of legs exposure at eye level. Her pain is our pain is his pain is her pain. Think to see more. Find face pore organ origin point of. Clean. A touch of henna lipsticks mockery evening awry inevitably slipping from focus. Find various orifice in black grass shiny. Angle of hips against; she was sitting at points prior. Six days During, blurred for public consumption glassy agony, the abolition of rights infinity in less than a week a 4X5 of the new kingdom. After as a gem of murder museums mouths held closed stitched contusions failure together.

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