
and none the wiser.
this is my suicide dress
she told him
I only wear it on days
when I’m afraid
I might kill myself
if I don’t wear ityou’ve been wearing it
every day since we met
he saidand these are my arson gloves
so you don’t set fire to something?he asked
exactly
and this is my terrorism lipstick
my assault and battery eyeliner
my armed robbery bootsI’d like to undress you he said
but would that make me an accomplice?and today she said I’m wearing
my infidelity underwear
so don’t get any ideasand she put on her nervous breakdown hat
and walked out the door



Hall has long been placed in the Frostian tradition of the plainspoken rural poet. His reliance on simple, concrete diction and the no-nonsense sequence of the declarative sentence gives his poems steadiness and imbues them with a tone of sincere authority. It is a kind of simplicity that succeeds in engaging the reader in the first few lines.