Stand Near Me

She’s one to watch
Unbeatable on the floor
For her full-length replica
Words
A chance in hell, she says
I am
entirely cut out for this
She tips a bottle to her wrist
Her wrist to her neck
Ignore the features of the room
because the girl’s for the win

Earlier she’d seen three of the same man
climbing out of a taxi
Three
Our gamer knows this to be
a lucky, lucky sign
Once they passed
nothing but a hum of anybody else
People are clouds
She’s one gold tooth winking at the front
and several caps inside
An obsessive ritual persists
Pure, capital O

Tramlines run under the city still
Here at the hotel
she picks a page
Writes the opponent’s name
and marks it with a tick in green
A reminder
There are small ways to punish oneself
and I am not here them
Lost titles? I want them back, she says
That’s how I feel
Thirst is not an attitude
I waited my time
and tonight’s a month-old moon
Pure, capital O
Waiting her time
she’s flipping channels
with a remote control
Nothing will suffice
not a drama in any language
It strikes her
no song has a sweet enough touch
The television is turned off and on
exactly twelve times
She wishes
she could unhear an interview she gave
They’d said they’d been watching her
and she’d used the word
annihilate
Stand near me, for luck, they’d said
before you break your streak