There was a girl once
who could speak three languages,
who knew plant names and could type.
She had fair hair that fell into her eyes.
Maybe she died. The woman
who lives here now is bone-thin, worn
like this shattered plate. She rages
at the weeping tree, her weary breasts.
She knows about blood, considers
how to summon it, lovely potion —
the razor and its buttery touch,
the cough that brings it up, shining
on a white handkerchief. She craves its
sticky taste; runny honey, spunk.
She wanders the streets, feels
the riverbed swell under her feet.
She sees men watching her, eyes
like questions, remembers their hands
sliding over her as if she were glass.
She can undress them, feel their pricks
growing in her hand, vessels of blood.
At night she hears the blackbird —
lovesick, lightpoisoned — singing his
heart out, the fox crying to no one,
her fur bristling in the cold, and she flies
out of her body to meet them,
her barge balanced over the city
in a bolt of lightning.

Tamar Yoseloff's two collections are Sweetheart (Slow Dancer, 1998), a PBS Special Commendation, and Barnard's Star (Enitharmon, 2004).

©Copyright of this poem remains with the poet: please do not download or republish without permission.

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