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Understand, this is a story. You are gone
and I am home. The viburnum is in bloom.

A convertible speeds past with the top down.
Wait. Back up. The neighbor invites me

for a ride on his bike. I think yes. I say no.
Our daughters hear me and laugh. In this story,

we have no daughters. You are a stranger
and I am the girl. This is the beginning.

You refill, again and again, my drink. We walk
for hours past row houses. We don't know

where we are. This is the part where I should be scared.
I'm not. This is the part where you tell me

I'm beautiful, and I believe you. Where you press
my thigh to your hip. I wipe the rain

from your lenses like a mother, then
you resist me. You didn't count on the rain.

Or the girl who falls, so quickly, for the stranger
every time. Understand, the plot

doesn't matter. Only the peak. In this story, you
are gone a long time. I get a kitten.

It grows. I don't know viburnum from a child's
pale palm. I refill, again and again, my drink.

This is the beginning. I take off your glasses and lift
my skirt. I don't know you, but tell you: resist.

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Copyright © 2014 Laura Van Prooyen All rights reserved
from Our House Was on Fire
The Ashland Poetry Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission