This time he means to put me in my place,
though often his words have unraveled me.
Do not expect anyone to believe that story,
he says, though I don’t suppose you made
it up. He believes me with the enthusiasm
of a lifelong skeptic, fingers deep in the
wound of proof. He is relieved to see that
I can still breathe, that my limbs move, though
slowly, so out of practice with the ground;
he listens as my tongue begins to find its way
into words again, stays just long enough to
tell himself the damage is unnoticeable, a
temporary death that will never be recorded,
the ashes of that other woman mixed into
my clay, her heart never missing a beat into
mine, the two of us cheating the grave in unison,
one forgiving, the other already forgetting.
