“A Coffin—is a small Domain”
She had a bleeding vagina but no bosom
and a man’s voice that barked, “Shut the fuck up,”
as she carried a carpenter’s bench to the kitchen
and chose some boards from the yard. But I spoke
anyway, believing in words as the basis of people
living together.
She sat a long time making a sketch,
measuring the planks to mark them with a pencil,
and then all afternoon a saw wheezed
across the boards as her hands went back
and forth planing them, but even with a ruler
and chisel, it was hard to make the domain-end
wide enough for my shoulders. “Sorry about that,”
her voice vibrated.
Dogs bite strangers, wolves catch lambs,
lightning strikes trees, but strangely—without any
premonition—she quit her revenge, and the spell
was broken. “Let’s talk,” I said, sad and happy.
The kitchen smelled like a pine forest,
everyday thoughts that are my world
returned to me, sunlight was white
with misty distances, and I lived.