2018 Oscar M. Macelliao Poetry Prize

 

 

 

I.  

It happens like this: 

she hears the car’s engine purring outside before its  

final exhale signaling that it’s slipped into a drunken stupor  

but her step-father’s life motor still putters on as he  

stumbles through the front door his ring of keys  

chiming against his greasy jeans and his heavy  

footsteps rocking the hallway hardwood outside her room  

the earthquake sires a fissure the door creaks  

open and she knows he’s standing there in contemplation  

although she doesn’t dare open her eyes  

her breath hitches she feigns fighting through an involuntary dream  

when he tilts forward and pulls aside the quilt lays  

paw on her trembling shoulder sifts digits through her  

nightgown a secret game that they share 

 

 

II.  

It happens like this:  

she grips the dog leash tightly but the mutt pulls  

forward into a bush humming with bumblebees its nose  

tracking the pollen that lingers on their knees and a passing 

jogger offers kindly to shepherd the hound away from  

their stings the young woman thanks him for his  

gallantry but she must be on her way because her lunch break’s  

over in thirty minutes and her bare arms are simmering vermillion  

under the sun the stranger plants himself in the middle of the trail  

drops his shorts and begins slathering sweat onto his  

mounting machismo barking orders to the girl who sobs  

faster faster as he strokes himself to death the dog  

cocks its head a silent witness for the woman who 

bites her tongue every time the memory resurfaces  

 

 

III.  

It happens like this:  

she smells the stale cigarette burning his lungs catching  

fires in his esophagus as he drinks spectral  

smoke he’s on his second pack today which means he must  

be agitated about the sunday sermon or the  

home football team losing or tax day the killing  

stick trembles between his teeth his steel eyes follow  

her as she sets the dinner plate before him when she  

withdraws her hands he seizes her wrist purpling  

the pasty skin under taut pressure he unleashes the  

fury of an old testament god accusing this israelite  

of unfaithfulness this whore of babylon  

carpel bones crack prophesying in the ecclesiastic blaze 

screams rise from her throat crippling hallelujahs  

 

 

IV.  

It happens like this:  

she tastes the amber carbonation fizzing like sea spray   

against her taste buds cheap beer college ambrosia  

palpable freedom in a red plastic cup 

so she guzzles drink after drink never a drought in her mouth her 

inhibition spirited away by a flood of endorphins in her brain 

she kisses boys into men until her protective friend   

wrenches her from a stranger’s lap wraps his arm around her shoulders  

promises to make sure she gets home okay back in his  

apartment he fixes her a glass of water but she drifts  

off into her dreams before the rim touches her lips only  

to awaken in the early morning when he presses her head into the pillow  

his weight atop her squeezing out drunken tears her  

heart black a rotting pomegranate   

 

 

V.  

It happens like this:  

she sees the electric pulse coursing through fluorescent  

veins the light buzzing in the examination  

room as the nurse taps a ballpoint against her clipboard  

those beats hit off time with the clock’s lethargic ticking  

the woman tries to ignore how the pen’s clicks match the incessant  

throbbing between her legs a chilling reminder of when he  

forcibly entered her in the alleyway and the shiv baited  

blood against her throat now an officer strides in  

and narrowing his eyes asks where were you going what  

were you wearing why did you wait so long to report  

it describe him but the details are dark fragments snapped  

trunks after tempest eruption enduring  

destruction the hippocampus watches it happen