(for Christopher Stephen Soden)

My friend Christopher the poet
told me he wrote a poem today
about a woman with stigmata
But he is frequently an unreliable
narrator and could well just be
messing with me again

I’m watching a report on television
about a young woman who has
gone missing from a small town
in America from small-town America
and authorities say the reward is now
all the way up to two thousand bucks
That’s a hundred dollars twenty times
by my figuring as I also note that they
point out they are searching corn fields

Stopped at a red light the girl in my
rear-view mirror is slapping the steering
wheel with both hands and obviously
singing at the top of her lungs singing
loudly and proudly as she thrusts out
her chin and belts out loud verses of
silence that can only be heard by people
who are used to cleaning up any and all
evidence of appearances of stigmata