I love your thighs naked.
Have I told you that?
He almost purred the words.

Never, she said
voice trembling, hands shaking,
concealing the letter,
she had opened by mistake.

No,
she had not heard that before.
or seen him bring roses,
cheap as they were from a corner store
discarded on a shelf.

Offended,
Her body tenses,
forcing herself to smile.
She barely says
you touched some girl.
A minor they say.
Don’t believe what they say,
he tells her.
Pressing against her,
murmuring, caressing.
They always lie.
You know I only love you,
you’re one of a kind.
Like the snowflakes we saw last May,
after a winter of no snow.

Flying all around;
cracked, shards of glass
from the mirror that shattered;
his fist thrust her face,
her hand clutching the opened letter.

A sixty five year old woman
found dead in the garbage can today.
Her twenty two year old son
put her there.
It made the front page.

It hasn’t rained this winter;
It’s too cold in some places
too hot in others.
A girl baby born today
could live to be eighty.
Let her have courage;
stand naked with blackbirds
on her breasts,
sit on her head,
see herself clearly in the glass
and love her thighs.