The Evening After: With Almonds and Raspberries and Claire

I am still tender

Eyes stinging

When I blink away the acid I dove into yesterday

For you with you

Warm belly boiling

And thighs

s u s p e n d e d

muscle cracking like ice away from bone

I was ringing

Couldn’t you hear?

Beginning again

And again

St uttering

Hesitating

Stumbling down an

escalator carrying 

me to salvation

I kept crashing against the ghost that stood between me and the confessions that clung

To my throat

Tasting like

cotton

on

wet hands

which held my face.

We’d found this rotted log, rammed into my chest

It’d been there since there was light and I

I had grown through it

You’d plucked it from its grave

Resurrected it for the microscope

(It’ll find its way back and you’ll pluck it

again

and

again)

It’s fighting to avoid persecution, litigation

Shrinking from undeserved mercy

Begging to die.

We may have hoped for a holy infant

delivered into the warm arms of the pure mother.

But it’s not.

Or we wouldn’t be here.

Instead, she swells from the formaldehyde

A deviant Venus

tainted child

soiled

and afraid,

sprouting weeds

and caked in mud.

The little monster slumped.

She’s foaming

naked

and-salted.

She held crumpled

dew soaked

lily petals

And hissed at you, at me.

I

surrendered

and foamed too

As you watched us sitting together.

I don’t know what you saw

but maybe

(when the tide rolls back)

I’ll see it too.

Author's Note

looking for feedback!

Reviews

[Timon]

Hi, Michelle. My mind can't wrap itself around your imagery. The poem's written structure doesn't really help to guide me to what you are trying to tell me. All of that being said, it was abundantly clear that this was inspired by traumatic experience. I got that even before I saw your tags, so that much was clear.