watchmaker

razorbaby
by me

she was the surprise bun in the oven
a 10-fingered, 10-toed bundle of wonder
who
was
going
to
be
a Mary or a Jane or an Elizabeth.

the doctor delivered her,
and then slapped her rosy ass.
she screamed.
then he screamed
having lost the tip of his pinky finger

she,
(who would never be a Mary or a Jane or an Elizabeth)
spit out the fingertip and would forevermore
be
razorbaby

her teeth, three-tiered deep like a sharks, were silver-mirror-bright,
sharp as stilettos and broken bottles.

her parents were happy,
10 fingers + 10 toes = joy

but
her
brother Brutus was:
jealous,
mean-spirited,
spiteful,

and home on a rare vacation from the detention center for car theft.

if even for a moment razorbabys parents werent watching her,
Brutus was there.

he locked her in
a
closet.

she ate her way out. she smiled with a few wood splinters stuck in her teeth.

he chained her in the backyard, Houdini style,
steel links were spaghetti and she slurped them up.

she liked her brothers games.

Brutus left her under the wheel of a parked 18-wheeler and went for coffee
he came back to scrape her off the road, but found a confused trucker and his little sister smoking a semis tailpipe like a two-foot stogie

the only thing left of the truck.

he tried getting her in trouble and told stories, horrible stories about razorbaby,
that shed eaten his wallet.
that shed eaten the back door.
that shed eaten the neighbors dog,
that shed eaten the neighbors.
but
Brutus parents were wise to Brutus and his ways and trusted
none
of what he said.

finally, Brutus concocted a scheme,
foolproof.

when his parents werent looking, he threw her breakfast and lunch in the garbage.

and later that afternoon,
he sat her
in front
of
a police cruiser

she ate it all, axles and oilpan, radials and radiator.

when the cops came out of Junk n Donuts, there was nothing but razorbaby
and
an
empty
parking
spot.

theres your culprit. brutus pointed down at razorbaby.

the cops looked at razorbaby, looked at Brutus, back to razorbaby, back to Brutus.

they put him in handcuffs, ran his record and threw him back in prison,
which is of course where he belonged and was most comfortable.

razorbaby, back with her parents, lived happily ever after,

older and wiser, she moved out into the big wide world,
becoming a bodyguard to the stars,
often eating her fill
of paparazzi
cameras.

*pic by my partner in crime