the salt grinder missed her face
I’ll stay
he missed
fear had turned her to stone
now you can leave
the daughter decided that
her mother’s fears
would never enter her body
*
I didn’t call the police
I called him
*
and he barely stood out in the darkness
trying to be a better person
when his demons lay dormant
*
they are in our house now
and he was a different person
when he was a visitor
*
and I try to remember
futile moments of unburdened joy
between us
like wet snippets of paper
you never come back to me that way
because my body reminds me
that my safety never lasts
*
whose hands have gone too far
my hands were not my own
and who’d believe that
*
she’ll always be the woman who aches outside of a window
framed, skin hanging off her face, within her face
a slaughterhouse, the world outside of her
and she wonders what keeps her alive
I study her from the reflection that makes her disappear
I’ll stay
*
she replays her life in her head
pretending to be someone else
*
involves the dead
as if they were still alive
to absolve her of who she had become
*
I ate breakfast next to a woman
who fantasised about her own funeral
Croque-Melpomene 