Found

 

 

I was a wall of teeth.

I was asking for

 

 a lesson.

 

There is an intimacy only found when violence stops being

a game

and starts meaning—

 

“Just say the word.”

 

It is my turn to become a storm flag or it is the end of winter,

that month of ache.

I have learned it is possible to live a long time with a wound.

 

I am game in the worst kind of way.

There is almost no sound to my body’s way of making a contest

out of impact:

 

electroencephalogram,

snow,

jar of bees.

 

Woman—

 

I am better prepared for that surge of contact,

of hand to body.

 

What I mean is I thought I knew

the silence that goes on

like a horse after the rider falls.