exile

Some wounds don't heal

Silent tears over potholes and you hope no one will see
these strangers you will sleep with in the heat in the dark
will not see your eyes as long as you suffocate them away
with a pillow and breathe slowly, deeply, as not to sniffle
over these overstarched cotton sheets, not beaten hard enough
against audacious, gaudy painted concrete, fraying at the edges
in this rural dream where you blister in the shade

not a move, be still, let these little creeks find their way past your crows' feet
and tingle at the soft and tender fruit of your earlobe

Some wounds don't heal

They make you resort to salt and honey until you have forgotten
pleasure, grown numb to a rigmarole of english muffins enshrined in
too-bright, too-reflective plastic that you pitch
into a trash can overfilled with shells of melons and
spiky pineapple progeny that none of the men bother
to empty and you wonder how you ended up the only woman
in this mosquito-infested palace of illusions
and you lock your door and you don't come out at night because you don't trust
these strangers you will sleep with in the heat in the dark
will not see your eyes as long as you suffocate them away

Some wounds don't heal