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.