Picture Clearly, he says, she’s dead. She’s dead, and he killed her. See how she lies flat as a blanket on the bed, not a live thing at all. Look at the way he sits, holding his head in his arms, hiding his face in shame, in the chair beside the bed where they lay together. Not really, no, she says. They made love, her words, not his. As you say, it didn’t go well. Perhaps she was too tight or, more likely, insufficiently taut. Like sticking it into a bowl of oatmeal, he might, right now, sitting on the chair, be about to say. Or, thinking of oatmeal still, he may accuse her of being insufficiently responsive. You lack spontaneity, he might say, you lack joy. She remembers the wet smack from the lips of her labia, wonders if she made too much noise. Well, it would put anyone off, he’ll tell her. Surely even you can understand that. The woman on the bed is dead, he says. The man killed her. That’s what you’re meant to see. No sense arguing, she thinks, but I was there. I know what I saw.
—Submitted on 02/17/2023
Jane Snyder‘s poems have appeared in Eight Poems, Gyroscope Review, and Funny Looking Dog. She lives in Spokane.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.
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