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Cut to the Flesh
by Kristina Woodhill
On the rare occasion, now, of hearing
A Certain Smile by dreamy Johnny Mathis,
or Nat King Cole's When I Fall in Love
a gentle hip swaying dance
and twining arms comes to this old mind
and I still feel the subtle imprint of your flesh
memories of the first kindling
of that particular first fire
On the rare occasion, yesterday,
of hearing your sister's agony
relating a family's horrors
and your unveiled threats to her
in order to protect another
I wished for the sharp blade
of my father's old hunting knife,
a knife you saw many times
in our youth, with my brother,
watching father skin the gazelle
I would hone it long and precisely
against that steel wall you and your kin
have built around the destructive sickness
of the one that will not sleep
and I would carefully and with no regret,
in order to remove any trace of you,
skin myself alive
12/31/2017 Posted on 12/31/2017
Copyright © 2024 Kristina Woodhill
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Linda Fuller on 01/01/18 at 12:20 AM What I hear in this powerful poem is the love that still exists in a long-time marriage, the length of which has given time for bitter accretions to accrue. The husband protecting his dead father for the molestation of his sister is my guess. |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 01/01/18 at 02:12 PM Those last three stanzas, Kristina are electric and charged enough to light one's way through the darkest of metaphors. Happy New Year To you and your family. |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 01/02/18 at 06:47 PM Suffering from the Winter blahs in post Christmas/New Years spiritual hangover, I'm having a hard time concentrating on many things right now, but this poem cuts deep enough to the bone to awaken me from my torpor to see its darkened brilliance. |
| Posted by Glenn Currier on 01/22/18 at 07:46 PM The regular revelations of sexual harm done by powerful men makes publicly real horrors endured within many if not most families. Your metaphor of the knife cuts through the pretense that all too many of us allow ourselves to live in - until the wounds actually happen to us or someone close. I relate especially to the honing against the steel wall. That image represents well the years of dealing/coping with the lies, insults, aggression, and insensitivity I myself have experienced within family. Your poem beautifully awakens us to the veil (sometimes wrapped in romantic fabric) of secrecy that protects the perpetrators. Thank you Kristina for this artful slice. |
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