2018 Beloit Poetry Journal Prize

 

 

the clay sifts into my shoes and

stains my leg hairs

When he sends a challenge, caressed toward me

                                        I extend my frame

bumping up against the shadows of the white ash trees

             crisscrossing the doubles alley

That evening dust lines his brow, the borders of his pockets,

curls under the bathroom door with his sandalwood aftershave

Sometimes I'd press my face

                 into the Jamaican crossed square of silk

he'd pat his hair with each morning

Sometimes I'd watch in the doorway as he slicked

                                        vaseline onto his hair shins

When he'd leave, I'd drag a thumbnail down my shin,

                 dip a finger into the jelly,

and wonder, what it was like for him to drag

his wet, seizing torso, across the linoleum,

the uneven floorboards, the wool guestroom carpet

pull the coffee table down onto his chest

 

and call my mother.