The Melancholy of Mechagirl

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