Poem-a-Day

I must let go of the story—

              the low call of home,

my father begging my mother

              not to terminate the pregnancy,

the image of the ocher Sierra

              Nevada scraping the underbelly

of a cerulean sky. I want to let

              my lover touch me there

in the shambles of language

              and loss. She kisses

my stomach as if there were no

              cartography of damage,

not the skin raised and darkened

              by injury. When I yelp in pain,

my lover says I’m sorry—although

              I am the one failing to hold

the position, my legs open wide

              enough to receive the fullness

of her, but my hips demand release.

              She holds me without

admitting what she senses I cannot

              speak: this caesura of wound,

this repetition of all my losing,

              the silence and failure

of loving with a ruined heart.

              She enters me with tenderness

and holds me at the black edge

              of fear until I give in.