When the days were longer
than even my skirts—
hot blue sameness
of summers spent in the place
where I am not of
but the place where
my blood clots
and dries untouched,
a wound
not quite open
but not
quite closed—
I thought if
I picked enough
at the scab of resentment,
something else
might emerge in place
of the briefest hurt—
but only the little sting
of perpetuation
felt, only
the ordinary disappointment
at the fact
of my remaining,
vulgar fraction
of a life
no one would
die for.
