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.