Lori Williams

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Seventeen

She wants to rip her tongue out
slowly, with pliers or maybe
the sharp knife from her kitchen set
slicing down the layers to the first one,
before the unforgivable,

the 1985 skin of pink that licked
his father's dick with her eyes closed,
wishing she were somewhere else
but she was there and that night
a seed of future fear was sowed

in her womb, vodka drenched
and salty. She tried to make it work
with yellow and teal borders that she did
herself. She scrubbed her stomach in the bath
and hoped for a girl, olive like her,

nothing hanging between joy and despair. A boy
is what she had, but she loved him, kissed
his penis with open eyes - he was hers.
The tongue of seventeen years ago has withered
and there is no plumping of it, he's gone away

and she is left with knives and pliers,
a flat mother's tongue,
wishes of death for dads and moms
and olive skinned children.
Forgive her.

©  Lori Williams 2003. All rights reserved.

Third Edition ~Editors: Mia, T. Birch, PJ Nights and Kathryn Koromilas ~