That She Had Submitted
BY ALEXIS POPE
1
the no of thunder through the curtains pulled back
she wakes with eyes shut filling the jar with oil
spoons the slow liquid & sets her tongue to work
on a gash a bruise swallowing her skin backwards
she the shape he takes see the window on which
he sets her the gentle slope of her back turns violent
in his definition she the shape he takes with his hands
find her in the draining of water from soil
2
or was it fascination the impossibility of feet through
squeezed into the boots to lace with greasy thumbs
biscuits in the oven berries in the freezer wasps in the basement
buzzing while she sleeps in her ears this delicate machinery
(if one limits the observation to the shape
yes the organs are the same)
(the feculent and corrupt blood might
be purified with his help)
No one leaves this town / His grass for miles
nothing but milk in the fridge cool in the nighttime
spills to warmed skin her skin an object she coughs
3
bad blood bad blood infected without his work
in swell in thrust find truth find good what’s inside
remains dark the mattress forms to fit her shape
the thing that remains constant unless filled:
the good work
these ailments raise the dead inside their tiny boxes
she remains asleep constant breaths wheezing with dream
her room he crawls into with her some nights
(she flips the pillow / she becomes / Him)
of what the mattress speaks coils reach into her back
until he falls from her long sigh of green see it in the fog