A hand is all we see
reaching from the door
he’s pulling her to him
but the moment is much more
than just him holding her
because the algorithms are wrong –
it’s the math that she can’t do,
that ****** her all along
There is no tall-dark-handsome
who will fix the broken things
but a voice that sometimes whispers,
*You are not broken. Sing.

while residing in my body
I feel a poisonous need to
not be here
peel back my skin
like onion layers
white stink petals
falling to the hardwood floor
before the full length mirror
A skinny girl itching
inside a fat woman suit

We’ve spent months and weeks and nights perfecting the curvature of my body molding against yours
as my fingers slip in among strands
and my knees bend just a little
to make sure my chest is resting
beside your center of operations
My head nods forward and then dips back
my lips have come to expect the
next sensation of exhalation
meeting here
meeting fear
Because now there is no practice
for our congregation of cells
no preparation for parting your lips
or my thighs
We are rehearsing in our minds
how to make thought pictures die
until practice with a stranger starts again.

What was it like for Hilda,
first spread wide beneath Mr. Pound,
pounding pounding pounding
to white lights and champagne sensations
then perched at her type writer
as he broke into her thoughts, ripped away black lettering
still wet upon the page, proclaiming "Poetry! Poetry, my dear!"

I wonder, did she object more to 'poetry'
or 'my dear'?