This was the pause trapped in my hands.
I'm a man, you said, I have to be on top sometimes.
(Another woman and her story):
the words creak
underneath when I walk--they are old like our house, their outline
black pepper warming in a pan:
saying you were sorry [but] you hadn't done anything.
(The story doesn't want me.)
I was full of bones, I rattled too much,
but that was my only language:
(She touches their story.)
How easy it was to know to hate her:
the rest was like breathing through the cracks
in my fingers. As if this bed
were our only memory.
|
Rio:
A Journal of the Arts