UP FOR SLAUGHTER
Every morning is still:
dribbling milk into a mug
.
of coffee and steadying a
blunt between my lips,
.
wondering what it is like
to be somewhere quiet.
.
On the television, another
white man clad in a pleated
.
suit and wingtip shoes shoves
his two fingers down a woman’s
.
throat—face ruddied and cries
all wrought & cushioned.
.
The only way to humanize
a woman is by defining her as
.
a “daughter,” “sister,” maybe
“liar”—the rest gives too much
.
truth. A man will hear a woman’s
scream and call it graceful.
.
The first boy who told me he
loved me did so with a calloused
.
hand over my mouth and a wild-eyed
grin on his face. He said, This is love.
.
I think of my body, discolored and
crude, hospitable only to the
.
mouth it loves and the rhythm
that follows. I think of forgetting
.
this body and peeling it off
in one coarse breath. I think of
.
that boy now, peddle-thumbed
and braceless, how he must still
.
define love the way it is not.
I think of the cold setting in swiftly,
.
emptying itself in mouthfuls, with
flecks of ash flitting onto my pant leg.