I Have Loved A Woman
Evyenia Sisovitis (University of Toronto)
Yesterday’s breakfast married to the pan; her mug
half full
of cold coffee,
half empty
with the silence of tenement crunch.
Hungry mirrors,
undressed closets,
and the left behind mattress
pressed naked against the wall,
as my body once did.
The dollar she put on the nightstand
to play numbers
too big to fit
in your mouth on purpose
came up short after the first bet.
If the paint chips beneath our fingertips
are necessary
let them be hidden with the forgotten
discharge on our hands.
Let them be sick with her clots
one more time until it seems reasonable
that I could change her like a pair of
wet socks in uncommitted footwear.
We were mad
the way young girls split the skin
to carry their bones as an offering
for a house or a cot or a private place;
mad
the way the commonplace of the asylum
outstared the pantomime moving across
the cracked plaster in the corner.
Here,
she spoke with a lit match of soprano tourniquet resolve,
let me circle a clock on her inner arm,
dig my nail where midnight would be
and name that tick after myself.
Here,
we were stilted tongue revolutionaries
beating on salted brain
for the pull of magnetic skull devotion
and a bottle of prescription finger paint.
Here,
we were young until we were old,
incorporeal and unforgiving,
pressed naked against the wall.
Evyenia Sisovitis recently completed a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto under the mentorship of Paul Vermeersch. She is applying to MFA programs in the Fall.
