The ball is as blue as a ballad.
Round like a fist.

It bounces like notes of music across a bar.
It sounds like quick footsteps in the dark.

It smells like a getaway car, peeling rubber.
Her head feels like a softball thrown into an alley.

Swollen. Stuffed. Blue as a bruise.
Waiting for daybreak, some kid, a sniffing dog

to bury her or take her in its mouth
and home.

Photo by murat soyluoglu from Pexels