by Anonymous
159
Grandpa’s fingers investigated
with precise measurements
one thousand, one hundred fifty-nine times
around the clamshell opening
of my vagina.
He was an explorer, voyager, surveyor, prospector
inside and outside, outlining the small
crevices and interstices,
exploring my female parts like jewels
in a velvet bag. He studied long and hard.
He was an expert on my vagina.
A man who wore his name on his shirt,
whose fame hung
around this neck like a guillotine,
whose fingers were stained
yellow from the daily pack of Camels
he walked a mile for - those same fingers
that explored and stroked —
those yellow, probes whose thick, textured,
nails dug and scraped new rows, new memories;
whose trembling lips would not stop
telling lies - all lies, all lies, and all lies;
whose rancid breath tickled
and stroked the back of my neck,
until the hairs stood up
and my ears screamed for mercy.
160
I knew my captor -
I hated him.
Yet, in the same breath, I loved him.
I wanted to please him
and I began to hate myself.
He taught me to dread
the fragrance of myself —
wearing my depression, my shame, my pain
like a silk camisole purchased at Macy’s.
Before I began to fold my own bitterness
into manageable nuggets,
painstakingly unbraiding my own
desires into emptiness,
uttering the usual predictive impossibilities,
I became invisible to everyone but him.
I learned to suck the lemon, eat the rind
to get lost – not let him find
me; try to escape
the mischief that was his due.
I wanted to become the river,
to be the sleepy,
tributary that slowly left
the lush, green valley,
meandering away silently, slowly, wordlessly
becoming nothing in an endless
water-world, flowing into the sea.
I wanted to wash the scum
of his perversion off my body
to wipe my mind clean of it.
Yet, I am ambushed again
and again. Stuck fast.
Eluding him
is an illusion,
even after the fact.
161
Jack frost danced
with the pane
of glass and inscribed
his delight upon it.
The pane of glass
for all the wanting, etched
intricately in gay
design was left starkly
cold; left with no
feeling after
the inscription
was set. It left
only the wanting
of his love,
but not his
loving embrace, not
the lustful wanting
of his touch and not
his amusement
at any expense.
162
The retch of his touch
the scrape and claw
of his nails reminds
me again and again:
eluding him
is an illusion
even after the fact.
The ragged breath
on my neck,
the rub on my bruised
nipples, gags
me - keeps me in
a limbo of wanting
and not wanting;
needing and receding
from what I must have
to free myself
from him;
from his affliction.
My self-hate mirrors the raging
river of his hot breath on my neck.
The fury of wild horses let loose
from their penned stalls,
becomes the resentment
of life lived by surviving —
not vexation, nor indignation —
rage,
hot, blinding, unsettling
rage
and I could not
live on.
His Dying
My grandfather died on a Thursday,
his body so full of morphine he was hallucinating
dancing elephants on the ceiling and singing
“Buffalo Gals won’t you Come Out Tonight”
with the wreck of a voice that was reduced to
a toad croaking on a summer’s eve.
He suffered long with prostate cancer —
a fitting malady, in my opinion,
for his sins of the flesh,
sins visited upon my flesh
and the flesh of his various
granddaughters.
Since he was such an asshole,
so perverse in his abuse of us,
I wanted the revenge
of a devastation
upon his body, such as the
ravage he had inflicted
upon mine.
When I saw him lying there
in that casket, I knew he could
no longer hurt me.
I stood still at the doorway, not
Able to go in, seeing him from
across the room
waiting for his death
to sink in — to be reality for me.
Mom put her hand on my back and
led me into the room and I flung
myself over his body and wept
like my life was over.
I thought the rage and the self-loathing
were over, that the memory of his touch,
his smell would dissipate. I thought
life would become a fairy tale.
I was wrong — eluding him
is an illusion, even after the fact.