The last poem I wrote

March 2018

Vitreous Body

If I had an autopsy

done this morning

The doctor would

see bites on my ass

And hand prints

and the long,

Grooved hollow

of a cane mark

Last night I dreamt

I woke

With tattoos all

down my legs

a line of sun-bruised flowers

peonies and birds

and I dreamt

that you came

into the room—

my ex-husband

who knew me,

and knew me,

and turned away

from me

and I said,

I don’t know how I got these tattoos. I woke with them.

And he said,

You wear them well,

You’ve always worn them

Your muscles have worn them,

Your tissue, your capillaries

They were there from the moment

You were named.

You didn’t know.

And then you vaguely knew.

And then you

didn’t want to know.

And then knowing

Became living.

We were married

for eighteen years

I didn’t know what

I felt when I was

23 and I walked down

the aisle toward the

the man who would become

My partner, my co-parent,

My parent.

All I knew

was that I had to keep

Walking and where I stopped,

There he was.

His hammock made for me.

Years swaying on it

Through graduate school,

Through babies,

Through silence

Through knowing,

Trying desperately to unknow.

He knew.

You knew.

He saw.

You knew.

I wanted a hand to

Slap me.

I wanted

to be whipped

I wanted

to feel the broken

vessels the next morning

like aching

aching rivers

wanting to run but

Hitting a snag,

Eddying, oxbowing

There are flowers in my body

They bloom when

I remember to forget my name.