The Dialogue

 

I say, Some parts of me are like this—

and open his hand

Rain water funnels into the pink

 

Thin channels of water

branching out and then contracting

as if surface tension isn’t a thing at all

 

He says he doesn’t understand

how I made him this way

so porous

 

I did it to show you, I say

made us parallel and reflective

 

He says, I cannot accept this

He means to say my body

but the word has too much shape

doesn’t fit well between his teeth

 

He searches for answers

but he’s too distracted

by the bright flush of stars

dappling the mid-day sky

 

How odd today is, he says

dragging his fingertips against

the cotton of my overcoat

 

I tell him, No—

This isn’t what you are supposed to see

and make with the unbuttoning

 

Underneath is a stretch of land

white, winter land with a center of melt

 

He turns to walk away

I am not this too

Yes, I say, you are this too

 

 

The Dialogue II

 

She says, Some parts of me are like this—

She says this as she undresses

exposing herself to him in the dead of winter

in a dead field under a shocked sky

 

This is the scene of it

the time and place of her opening

 

She tries to show him through his hands

through mirroring

but even this miracle is too small

 

He fingers her overcoat

his last attempt at softness

but she is angry

 

No, she says, No—

and removes every stitch

un-sews herself at the middle

 

All that warm begins to spread

out from her center and all over

her white skin

 

And the boy leaves her there—

 

A girl standing naked in a field

holding her heart

 

Zoe Etkin

 

Zoe Etkin is a Los Angeles based poet, student and educator. She is a recipient of the Beutner Award for Excellence in the Arts for her poetry. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Burning Word, Poetry South and Glyph.

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