They never tell you that it will be a gas leak. That one day you’re presiding over Barbie’s fourth divorce, and the next you’re sprawled out over the arm of the couch trying to remember the way your hips moved before, mining for lightning. And no one ever mentions that the first will be a man who will never know your name. Stubble and eyeliner and a voice like glass. He enters late at night, low so parents two doors down can’t hear the wailing. And he is beautiful and aciculate, taut body dressed in bruises. He cries. You cry. It’s as though they forgot the slow quake growing inside,
the devastating tremor
of your first waking hour.
Katelyn Delvaux works as an English instructor in St. Louis, MO and serves on the poetry staff for Red Bridge Press. Her most recent publications and interviews may be found in Barren, Menacing Hedge, Split Lip, Driftwood Press, Barn Owl Review, Off the Coast, and Slice magazine or at www.katelyndelvaux.com.
formercactus 