It was as if we caught her -
seventeen with a tub of cookies and cream Haagen Daaz,
on her mother's hessian sofa
cradling Hugo the cat and the remote control.
In the foyer amidst the strobe
I watched her,
one foot up against the peach sponging
the other flat on black granite.
The siren sung out about how she liked to eat digestives
out the packet with a spoon,
how she took her sisters laptop to the edge of the hotel bath
and lay there till the water was cold wishing
the orange county was yellow.
