She lets him piece her back together with ugly, clumsy hands. My pretty thing, seeking peerage in the rabble- Tossing pearls to swine. Her bones still humming hymns of grip and teeth and need, of breaking just to feel. He offers her a safer cage: like children playing house, and something in me wants to laugh- As if pillow-walls and tencel sheets could keep the monsters out. She used to count the exits when we drank. I taught her how to hurt; this virgin bitch that dreams of demons. The cur returns to kicks; each bruise becomes a prayer when pleasure feels too clean. Tall and blonde And ugly So ugly Like a farmer tilling fields Because his farmer father's farmer father did I wonder if he knows This field belongs to famine. I am the ugly thing here, beautiful and sharp and wrong. Let her rejoice among this uncut stone, this man who dresses wounds no husband-stitch can shut. I taught her how to hurt.