for the body returned. She hums

by Elliot Harmon

Were theatre history
recast somehow
were the focus to shift

from the struggle to replicate
perfect human moments
to the struggle
to endure them

were it not
who got away

with what liberties

when rewriting his/
her predecessors
but just
who got away,

Artaud might be
a 15-yr-old
Lakota girl

the day she left
Lower Brule
in her father’s pickup
down 47 to I-90

the only thing she knows
for sure exists
outside of South Dakota.

She drives past row
past row of corn
Wall Drug billboards

bright orange 76s midair
advertising truck stops

barbed wire fences
deer, deer carcasses.
They will look for her.

The Argus Leader
will run a photo,
her parents desperate,
asking only

for the body returned.
She hums

because the screaming
is too loud,
and so slowly

as to be indiscernible
turns the AM dial searching
for a new country
station.