Ten Weeks, Six Days
by Desireé Bewley Dallagiacomo
He bought me french cut cotton I wore
under sweatpants all winter, body ornate
turning interior red secret under balmy heat.
Miles apart these days he sends adornment
when the new moon comes. Desire swathed
with a sock stuffed in its mouth. Desire is a lie
that tells the truth. Desire’s slow pull like one
long ribbon severed from the blood orange pulp
My desire floats unmoored down a wide river, she
and I are sisters swaddled in the water. He and I
shacked up in a one-bedroom by the headwaters
that bottomless spring I swallowed yarrow to starve
out what desire planted in me, Queen Anne’s Lace
jotted in my private bible to split, belly, and gut
when the almond blossoms pushed out the whole blue sky.
Our bodies bloomed with heat in those brief weeks
we were three, desire cradling us so the pain couldn’t enter.
His palm held to my back steadying me to bed after
my hips buckled over the toilet, our life’s life
circling the drain. Another timeline’s kind of fathering,
his hand pressed the hot rag to my navel to soften
the curdling churn. In another bed, I stretch
my body across the blanket as he tucks me into
his mouth under the red light, pawing
at my skin like a kitten orphaned
under a heat lamp.