THREADCOUNT

The Sentence

I have been woman most wretched. The earth is damp and the tulip bulbs are rotting with me. The last thing I see might be your leather boots, or hear: the cuckold squeaking. Left for weak and wilting. My cheeks’ eternal melding with the dirt, or else. A rain that should have been a sleet. For dead. I make a compromise with an archangel or two: I will trade my apologies for an entropy that will go on and on.

He could bless with a pinch of words. Untouchable, like I can’t talk to the dead. Then there is force. On, the devil. I lash but not belong, or stand as beast not mingled. Walking down vainly, or running on forever. Your womb will be poured out, they tell me. Hunted then cleaned. Flawless and empty. Left sunning in my soft, nubile skin. After getting gross for miles. Even the fire has a rhythm as I am plucked of my bone. A spider slides in the flame, loses a leg. This is better than the prowl of tired domesticated men.

The fat stays on without a knife. I render me serrated for your accolade and no one else’s. Into the room I stay fast, suspended. When you near the door, I pirouette from the ceiling’s heavy hooks. There is an unsurpassable taste. Salt to be cured. Fastened to the rapture of a one-rope-pulley-me. The ceiling beams as I shake loose the plaster. Lemon-bleached for tender. Frolic, how I am remembered. The flora still sticky to my new courageous feet. Forgetful, like at the market. Soil becomes mud with spit, slipping past your teeth to me.

Thin, because I was left unattended. Not even given a word. Strips. My jilted, abandoned hang. The air around me still. Save my breath. The last poor fillings uncollected, and I stay weeping open. The dread it comes in waves. A patch of limp me on the floor. Born forgotten fur. I keep warm with the drape of solemn love. The desert will bloom, and me, in forest’s shadow. Unthink my porous dawning. I hear the children whisper. Astray, their voices dwindle. Here I’ll never grow.

Inanimate eyes of charcoal. I’ll use the same ones for centuries. Dig: the hand of you in me. Paraded glove, I flaunt my loss. How will the day feel. Glacial by the looks of it. Brittle is the absence. Now the day feels spayed. He grants me my name before he goes. Drained, my blood has notes of silk and sun. A tick for unborn swallowed. Carried as a gory dame. For all I know, he burnt down the world. Love always, ash.

Dumb, as though I’ve never felt the earth. In wait I find the drip. My carcass is held so simply. The weather makes me itch, without a hand to reach. Bury me in the stench of becoming. I desire to a fault. The branch that brushes the window. Fetal me is wrenching. And you, away. How long does the night wait. Not too much longer. I find atonement in the belly, spent. The birds are ringing their bells. Flip the illing underneath. Alone, where with my fitting unamendment.

Waking onward. It is dizzy, this coming of age. The softest efforts null. The sun again. I am losing. Does the slack even give, or is it holding loose. I make days when I bat my lashes too long, and then I make myself sad. Encounter me. I ask for the knife with no resistance. Do me your sharpest.