Rebecca Lehmann
The Detective
She made it her business
to know what we were doing.
The phone, her ally, rang often.
She kept pens in her car
and rode the brake as she passed.
She smiled mountains.
Once, we saw her in the park,
hunched over a legal pad.
A raincoat the color of dirty grass
spread across her shoulders.
Her smile was suspect,
a symphony with too many violins,
cheese with too much milk-fat.
We didn’t trust anyone
could be that happy.
The missing teeth bugged us.
Where did she get off
not having all her parts?