I undulate on a hammock of emerald moss
I bask in buttery yellow sunlight, enjoying the feel of a snug cotton tee shirt, chewing on a moist chocolate brownie, listening to silence, for a moment

My baby put a quarter in the washing machine, ka chink

Inviolable as apricots late in the season, I bore my chest, not for the man I married, but for the woman I loved

Frozen rain slapped my face

The world is all at angles up here
Looking down I feel dizzy, like life down there would pull me in
My heart feels like a mountaintop sheared off by a meteor

Wind strikes the ground like a gavel

And then he pushes my back against the wall, the heating vent singes my hips, nerve firings scream burn, burn

Think, think, think of white: Jasmine flowers,
satin bedsheets, cotton underwear, forbidden rice,
soft skin of my daughters

Think, think, think of sleep, sleep, heavy and
wet like damp fleece

In the bleak colorlessness of a prisoner’s hell, the sight of a single tulip suspends the intolerable horror of living

03/04/2004

Posted on 03/06/2004
Copyright © 2025 Leslie Ann Eisenberg