A Rabbit Unscathed
Bit lips, dirty mouth,
black eye, little swelling,
blackberry scratches
blood that does not break
the skin
but pools just beneath the surface,
fading bruises like a map of ghost towns.
You're trash, she says, but I still beg
her, Let me come. No, no and no, she
always said.
Yet for all the No, she sits on the edge
of the bathtub, watching me wash
dried blood and dirt from my skin
and out of my hair. I can feel her eyes
even when mine are closed. Just to escape
I submerge my head in lukewarm, filthy water,
which fills my ears with the bells of Ys and
the rattling chains of shipwreck anchors.
Her fingers are like seaweed, slithering over my
chest and cupping the back of my neck,
lifting my head out of the water.
No and no, yet she helps me out of the water
and dries me with a soft towel, patting dry the
cuts and scratches, dresses me in the sweatpants
and tshirt left by some other man, and lays me
down in her own bed with pale white arms,
I lay on my back on the cool sheet, watching her
undress and dress again in an oversized shirt and
lay beside me.
I would have loved to see this happen, she says,
turning off the light.
The dark consumes us, my eyes adjust and I can
see her pale arms like milk, curled and her pale face
turned to see me.
The hours crawl, neither of us sleep.
In the morning, all my scabs and cuts reopen
as I get up and move around;
there are trickles of ruby down my arm,
but still she makes coffee and unbuttered
toast and we sit without speaking
across from one another, eating and drinking,
the radio on, telling the news of the
death of a minor celebrity we had both
known once. But we don't even meet
each other's eye, and I become more and more
awake to the open cuts and exposed nerves
of my body. I wipe blood with a wet rag,
but she takes it from me and takes up
where I left off, gentle, maternal.
I can see her pulse twitching in her neck,
fast and strong.
At the door she says,
I don't want you coming here again.
Of course, I tell her. You said that last time.