Aubade
       

I have made book of your body, read
in your heavy lids the hooded font of sleep,
made, even, punctuation—your ticks
accenting your anxiety like apostrophes.

I'm sorry I read you, but I need to sidestep
the language your body rings—its emotions
all bells clanging in my mind's cathedral
what might soon become

danger, or a tongue-torched anger—balled
fist, tight-knit jaw, or a murkiness crawled
behind the half-drawn valance of the eyes,
this study, this habit, what my therapist calls

a survival mechanism, after four years learning
a mother could machine-gun the thinness
of my sheet metal peace. At least this means,
I've survived. At least, this means

when the sun dispatches bullets
through my curtain, I will be holy
& wholly breathing. I will mirror,
the glassy stillness of an October dawn

before cars split their beams through its glint
& if I could just hold the autumn in
do you think I could be beautiful? because
when I'm angry, I Shar Pei in a quiet rage,

& when I'm sad, my lips plump
& droop like plums, at least this means
there's sweetness still—& together
we might mechanic with any tool clanking

on my belt because we love us some me,
or least, I believe I can believe you
when you tell me you want to see
my face damned with morning again, again

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Copyright © 2022 Diamond Forde All rights reserved
from The Louisville Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission