CHERYL SNELL
Dirty Laundry Tumbling from the fold of a fitted sheet—balled-up silk, some foreign lace. Things come and go in this house. Last night, an earring tangled in the wrong color hair, everything gone bloodshot and damp. The man’s non-sequiturs circled the drain of his stranger’s ear: Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone. How else to go with a come-on like that—innocent as soap, pink bubbles bursting like an alibi on the verge of coming clean. | Ninety I’m taking everything off she announces, clawing at her clothes. A new scar gleams on her mended hip. Where did this come from, where is it going? A cross-hatched seam in the center of a body’s landslide. A cradle for children, a long-ago man; a broken wing. She begins brailing her whorled fingertip down the red raised tracks. This is not what she expected. A railroad crossing pocked with stop signs. A fire escape going down. |
