A Dressing
Down
HOW wonderful is Death,
Death,
and his brother Sleep!
One, pale
as yonder waning moon
With
lips of lurid blue;
The
other, rosy as the morn
When
throned on ocean's wave
It
blushes o'er the world;
Yet both
so passing wonderful!
Shelley
“Queen
Mab”
even here, stowed,
a light as a moth cough, and his body
exhausted, broke, taut and paused
cautioned by nothing,
nor fists nor birds…
the intimacy of this: plucking
each weed, sewing each mouth’s
sweet upper and lower
lip shut, cuts mothers
never see beneath the hair
where hooks, where men
pulled and the skin just gave
way, like a shirt, unbuttoned
at the end of a long, long
day. but see this:
a
bruise a new bruise
(but
not) it’s not the color
of
all the todays
it’s
the color of yester-
day’s
yesterday morning – I remember
seeing
him wait for the bus
I
remember slowing down
to
offer a ride I
remember
his fist, his lips,
his
spit wiped on his sleeve
when
he said no
thanks
and turned
away
it’s
only new because it’s noticed;
it
floats just below the sur-
face
of my hovering thumb – cold
cocked,
that’s all
I
could say putting my needle
back
on the tray. boy’s
not
going to have to
defend
himself anymore I guess. No.
he’ll
never have to duck
or
strut when the swing missed
or
didn’t, when his mother yelled
before
he left yesterday
morning:
I
don’t give two Fucks what you
do.
Go. And I hope you don’t
come
back.
maybe
it’s her
I
need to take the needle
and
the rouge to. Maybe this boy’s saved
after all.
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