The smells of other women
were a disturbing telltale
she was being kept
like an animal.

She could smell sweat;
could smell blood, too,
and became aware
that it’s not so true, what they say
about women who live together,
that: their cycles will,
by will of Science or
God,
fall in,
like ants marching.

No, the air here is persistently
flavored with blood:
sweet and tinny
like just a bit of flat cola
in a can
that’s sat in the sun.

She could smell also
gunpowder like perfume
and her deep palm-lines
seemed shaded with it;
dusted with the dark
of traded freedoms.

Other women
had done less: had only
drawn a meager drop
for their sentences.

And other women:
had nosed blood
long before
they’d shed any.

She had done both,
more or less and
less or more.
After all,
he’d only given her a charley horse.
Just playing, he said and
she did believe him;
believed his beer-breath,
believed his little-boy grin.
It was true:
he was only playing.
This time.

How she was spent with the playing! –
was tired of being tied to him:
a cat de-clawed
a chained-up dog.

She aimed at him and
when he heard the cock
of his own man-gun,
he asked why:
Why, baby girl, why?

She turned her eyes black
and felt it, finally,
felt her heart crack.
She said:
Well, baby, my mother, see?
She said that I should pick
the very best one
and
you
are
not
it.