it is the sophisticated thing.
How was I to know you meant to keep him?
Absurd in my torn dress,
tail bulging free, the muzzle
you tried so to train to lips,
curled back, knife-whiskered,
I stood with blood beating my flesh to drum-taut,
in our kitchen, in our hall,
mange-sodden and mud-bellied,
before the man who was
beautiful enough,
beautiful enough.
V.
It is not possible, you said later,
when I scrabbled at the door he built,
when my skin was blue and bruised,
and there was no russet left in me,
when my nakedness in the snow
was goose-pimpled and smelled so damp,
so much like soup
and cherries
and creased dough in a silver pan—
it is not possible to love for long
what is not a girl, sweet nor soft,
nor civilized,
nor trained to tile and mantle-shine,
stray beast in the house,
scolded when she spoils supper
with her hunger,
when her rough tongue spoils