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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.

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