Bring the boy back, set him on the bed’s edge,  

let us apologize to each other and then let me rip  

his cheeks from his jaw and shake him,  

so the scream staked to his stomach lining rattles loose.  

Tonight, I am alone in a large bed. my newer love  

reads in the next room over. we are full on a kitchen stocked  

with vinaigrette and cauliflower. the joy has gathered like honey  

on our fingers and stuck gold to the countertops, ceramic bowls, oak chairs.  

I lie on a freshly washed quilt, thinking of the hoops in his lobes,  

his pinch on my hip when he came, my body shelled beneath him,  

liquid rolling tepid down my spine. I can’t remember what I was  

thinking, then, only that I felt like dying.  

There is always warmth in this house, currently too much. 

I switch off the heater, crack the window. cold air  

whispers over me. she bought us that pine candle,  

that bottle of chardonnay, that white-trimmed mirror.  

All this remembering tells me I am ungrateful, that  

if she were to step into my mind, analyze the frequency  

of these memories, she might hate me for them.  

I flip through old therapy notes, find the question,  

do you feel dirty? and cry for the first time in months.  

I’ve never fully scrubbed him from my back. I lie  

on our bed or curl into a friend’s arms or my shirt rides up  

and the wrongness of me is exposed. like a secret nobody knows  

to look for but could see easily, if they did.  

and if anyone did see; how ugly would they think me. and so  

I pour the vinaigrette on our spring salad mix and pick the green  

from her teeth, make our bed every morning, cry in the shower,  

kiss her and slide my hand into still-wet hair. 

we drink the wine, we pick lipsticks for each other from our drawers. 

I come home late and drunk from long walks, I read her my favorite novel,  

I bring her the blue blanket from the other side of the room,  

I make a second self of appearing happy, and clean,  

and good for her.