A Posthumous Poetics

From embarrassment, I made statements. My icons—tight caves and mouths—stuck together briefly like dry lips, like a lover’s insults. The fact is they were ugly to all of us. I said, How painstakingly personal! Here are the words for this, Relentless as insects! I was hysterical. Every tone became artful, the worst urges nuzzling like housepets for someone to feel them, each real subject demanding more real context for remarks. Then abstractions insinuating their sharp edges, asking to pry open privacies alone in the bathroom at bedtime then with strangers in elevators, at stop signs. Even then, I knew you’d shun them, because who would choose such intrusions? I learned to love this isolation as a woman who appears to listen. All night I’d talk about my life anticipating her dramatic relief, believing her affectionate gestures filled in what wasn’t spoken. At those times she seemed so genuine and friendly, a voice from inside my own body describing my shameless surrender as our first kiss, perfect as gravity.