The Earth Moves

A LITTLE DEATH

Did the earth move?
I wasn’t sure you spoke
and yet I heard,
the way an animal conveys pain,
a folding in of self,
avoidance of the usual,
a knowing we could no longer do
the things we thought nothing of.

You're buttoning in, drawing
all the reasons you cannot
into a pinning of the problem
on me, a build-up of all
you want to expel from me
like the grit underneath
my soft skin, the otherness
I’ve secretly nurtured.

Go, before it becomes
too much to bear,
before I shape-shift into
a tiger bite, a wild woman
howling through her nights,
luring new lovers to their little deaths,
you to the edge of realization,
in front of the mirror that always
reflects backwards.