by Louise Robertson
It is surprising how close the men come to me.
The footsteps don't care. They rasp against
the ground, desultory, a chore, another
way to wear off the rubbers soles of time.
In the game, you play without a heart stitched
by adrenalin. Now I think it pierces the head.
Soon I will be heard and it will be my fault
and they will see and I will be dragged,
another shoe scrapped away,
a chore of rape. What
do you call a group of birds? A flock.
What about crows?
So this will be a murder of rape,
a suicide of rape, an evisceration
of rape, and of course, a war of rape.
Everything will be cut off, a flock
of cuts, a pound of cuts, a body of
cuts, a female of cuts.
And my head will be a box
to stuff myself
into. And I will pray
to the birds, to the crows
to have it all
spilled out.
Louise Robertson lives in Ohio with her two children. She also has graduated from Oberlin College and earned an MFA from George Mason University. A winner of the Mary Roberts Rinehart award for a poetry manuscript, she has also won the Columbus Arts Festival poetry competition twice and has performed in poetry slams locally and regionally.
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