Avecento

    jennifer martelli

 

 

1. 

 

A ghost clutched himself—no, a purple gladiola—and waited for me to look up from my book.

 

My sister knew the moment she showed me her silver homunculus ultrasound and we heard an    echo.

 

The stars were silver, too: the night he was born the whole sky didn’t care.

 

(I never wanted a boy; I feared the guilt of circumcision.)

 

But he was like the rarest marble rolling under the desk out the door and I could hear our  mother            
      say, oh you can’t have nice things.

 

2.

 

Springtime is bad: who isn’t loved back, which flower won’t grow, what did I do wrong.

 

Some girls cut themselves: this cut is my father, this one, me dropping leaves into the well, this  
      is the one who won’t look at me after I took him whole in my mouth.

 

Even the roses were small, big-thorned and when I bent the stems, they let loose their attar.

 

The hills were hollowed by the rabbits fucking and birthing, hollowed out to look like a skull.

 

To get good takes persistence, good even at bad things: forgetting, smoking, sticking spikes into your arm.

 

3.

 

But the worst is waking to warm crumbled sheets still damp.

 

I promised I wouldn’t contact him until it was time; he teased me, stood just out of reach.

 

Someone was playing June Carter Cash—burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire—when a dove       
      dive bombed straight into my heart.

 

I always assumed he’d take me whole in his mouth too, whole, my long body.

 

Love so big airplanes crash and used tissues all around my bed--no angels, ghosts.