I
 

You took the words I cannot speak,
the ones that stroke my nightmares and come into the ink
I try to remove or rewrite
myself—but I wasn’t touched
as a child or grabbed in the commons,
the joke was my scars too light to be seen,
they’re clean, unlike me,  they were

clean enough to keep building a wall that could not be climbed
   no dragging men up by the hair as skin peeled away    proof
from the roots   so my bones are liquid in sleep   and   I am
   part of womb   demanding justice
is that this air gets harder to me   breathe

II
 

            you are here and spread pumpkin seeds scoop out my insides juicy and orange grinning
            and ripe as a spider creeping up my knees web sticks to this dance entranced you tell me
            to move my lips over bone and sleep while slipping pajamas in lips wet to become mine
            all frozen limbs and mouth dry I wrap me in a blanket of rum drink my lungs tickle my
            cheeks flame and when you take say salt water is fine in the morning you grip my thighs
            pull down the lace lift the curtain ignore the friction oh not nice I tell me sit down in
            your coffin

III
 

doctor said   I should cut that October out
   and place it in a trunk     let it be
forgotten   blinked past speech
I dropped my stomach   down a well   heard it splash
Gone   it couldn’t call out how damp in this hay
   the rain was beating me   naked