by Caitlin Scarano

A Poem to Multiple Men

Who made and mended my wrists
of wire. Copper conductors of heat
and electricity. Think of the synaptic
dance, jaw loose daze as you bend
me over and peer inside. I keep you
around to witness the holes in me
I can never see. In the morning we part
wordless, mired mouths, semen on my chest,
the sun rapping against my window
like a chipper neighbor in need of sugar.
I learned the price of loving
a place more than a person: that’s how
I lost one. Were we ever happy? I wrote
and then stomped through each creekbed
between our bodies with kneehigh
galoshes. Most days I take a girl
for a mask. I hide my teeth behind
my hair and pretend to love snow. Give me
the boy with the belly of an ox, give me
one like a child’s tower of blocks
that I can knock down and rebuild
until the game tires of us. I hope you find
someone who loves you. I was never the girl
next door, I was the one cackling beneath
the radiator, bruising herself behind
the eyes. Chasing the moonsure,
the white dog, the man who left me
with a tongue of coal dust.
He’s really no different than the boy
I made into jigsaw and kissed in the rain
until one of us bled.

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