with a hot match and tweezers,

spreading the flesh with your hand while I stood wincing

at the mantel. For the first time:

you on your knees for me. I wondered why

there was no clock anywhere in the cottage. Why

no way to lock

the door. Why the woodcutter

never said it was his place, why I paid

rent to a woman with a post office box

and not to him across the path.

He

never spoke to me at all. The conspiracy

of men.

You made sure the head of the tick

wasn’t hidden in a ridge

of cellulite. Blotted away the little dot of blood.

Put your tongue inside me

until I pushed your mouth away. You said

It’s not the end

of everything.

You wiped your chin on the edge

of the blanket we left

on the floor where

you liked to fuck me from

behind. I looked at your watch. You better get going.

You folded my hands between your own. Don’t do it like this.

You kissed each finger, still

on your knees.

How old you seemed, then.

And the woods

turning against me. You let the light

drain into the floor.

We could turn

to marble, I hoped. We could burn

all the way down

to the bones,

the black head of the spent match

curdled on the rug,

the whole room at last

fireless.

ONCE

ONCE

Once upon a time—

the fox fingering his bride—

the dragon striking his tail on the stone—

the crow shitting in the stream—

Hail the goddamn god. You said.

The viper tensing beneath the leaf

her foot turning black in the grass

poof! That was the end of that.

She was dead before she knew it

the little pig letting you in.

Not just once

you dug your fists in her hair-folds

combing as you climbed—

you could have flown you could have crawled

or slithered belly-wise

but in the end it was a man’s form you took

to take her in, right there on the cold floor

pushing past the silk

laughing into her neck.

She got a throatful whenever she opened her mouth.

She got iron she got lead she got done.

She wanted to rip right through you but it happened

every time the other way around. She couldn’t learn

a new way to wear her hair a new

tower to sit in. She was a bit dumb.

It seemed like a good idea—

the only idea,

punching out the windowpane

so you wouldn’t have to knock,

sleeping with her hair over the sill,

stripping the oak bare.

After you’d gone she’d think ravished,

good, she laughed and cracked

her knuckles splashed in the sheet

counted the marks on her arm.

The mirror told her she was beautiful

no matter how bruised how changed.

Once, you didn’t appear for a whole evening and she

ate wax and almonds and smoked.