She is crumpled, crossed and barred
and 16 years my senior
red-eyed, dry from crying
throat so hoarse
from screaming or restraint,
She will not say;
It's not my job to make her.

I drove to her with a perfect stranger
meter racking up and up
the streets so silent, gleaming
reds and greens in streamers, seeming
harsh, an accident at the intersection
not a block from our destination
glass and twisted chassis, law
enforcement forcing doors
the jaws of life-

And we arrive, I thank him for the drive
Emerge is packed tonight
I'm past the triage nurse
and walking tall to where they keep her
Keeping steady feet I check and
turn the knob and steady handed
reach to meet and greet her.

And so the waltz commences
we two strangers taking both our places
she alone on dingy couch and me in single seat
She tells me how his hands would reach
while she was sleeping
in and under
dreaming, under ethanol and fear and meekness
spirit wrought to weakness
unfamiliar arms and gestures
pieces of him left in hairs and handmarks
bruises... bloodclots... semen...

Make my way through mental checklist
Proper words in proper order
never rough or reckless, just these
harmless little pieces
til my voice can start to come away
from soiled, sordid memories,
and back to STDs, and back to pregnancy
forensics, policy
snuck sideways, weaved between my heartfelt empathy
enough to Override the rage inside my chest at men like these
To try to ease the strife, to give her back the worst day of her life
they give her me.

They give her only me.
They take her clothes and blood and look her up and down
inside and out
and pop her pills and slather creams
and hand her on to me,
some feckless under-twenty
New and not-a-mark.
What desperation, oh
what bravery.

The 3-4 cadence slows and stops
Four hours later; we still part as strangers
much the way we met, except I
store and stash her secrets, keep her
face erased, her name eradicated
dashed away and Doomed to fade-
a wry and shameless trade
for sanity, for peace.

Hers, not mine;
and as for me, I dumbly stumble home
to lick my wounds, lose my shine
And wonder where I'll be
at 35.

04/27/2008

Author's Note: This is real. And the title is all I can write in the report about it, so as not to get subpoenaed. That's it. And so I stared at the words and thought "That's all she gets on paper? That's all there is to verify this at the Centre?" And I went home and couldn't vomit because there was nothing in me. I watched cartoons for hours. Brushed my teeth.

Posted on 04/27/2008
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