leverage
Before the burglar
raped my grandmother
he pushed her down
a flight of stairs.
Ankle turned, hip unhitched.
There was no getting up, no
hope for flight. She told me that while he
was on top of her, she stared up
at the clock from the kitchen floor.
Watched each minute crawl by
like a half-smashed bug,
imagining the school bus
emptying her sons into the yard.
Thought of the sandwiches
she had no time to make.
As the man pulled his pants up,
she noticed the tattoo on his
forearm. MOTHER framed
by a heart. My sons will be home
soon, she explained.
How many?
Five.
What she told me next
I could never understand,
not until I'd lived long enough
in this temporary body,
not until I'd lived long enough
in this temporary body,
not until I had five children
of my own, how, when the man
held out his hand, she took it.
Neither of them speaking as she
leaned all her weight onto her one
good foot, the two of them standing
in the kitchen, spreading butter
onto bread.
Copyright Credit: Rachel McKibbens, "leverage" from blud. Copyright © 2017 by Rachel McKibbens. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: blud (2017)