Over the Porcelain Wall



                              I

I stand in the kitchen and hum,
cutting away soft apple bruises,
translucent slivers of pink flesh
still clinging to the blade.
It trembles when her scream
erupts like a tidal wave;
broken siren beyond
our beige bathroom door.

Concerned, I enter gruffly
and peel back the brown mildew folds.
Her plush nude body still stands there,
arms dangling dumbly,
breasts fuller than my own, 
her face by her feet cringing,
glassy eyes staring up at their body,
now severed and cold.
The water and soap create eddies;
hair like wet sparrows nest,
splayed feathers, pink wine, sorrow, 
waves as it's pulled down the drain. 

Shhh, I tell her, be still,
its only a spider . . .
As the scout’s dozen eyes peer over
the side of the porcelain wall
making mental notes of the terrain,
her scream begins to scream,
and I claw my ears closed and leave—

That howl could shatter concrete. 

Ignoring it works briefly,
them I’m assaulted throughout the night
by accusing spears that pierce goose down,
and my guilty dreams are turbulent.



                              II

Erected the wall last Sunday.
My thin arms wail, but it will do.
I cut a small doorway for the armies to enter.

The scout’s report delivered
the armies march, and I giggle,
squatting, urinating in the garden
imaging them going over the wall
to make her soft mouth their bunker,
their keep and their campaign’s rations,
for the lengthy occupation. 

Their stone pincers flex, theyll
peel back the sugary layers
of wet lips that met briefly
the tongue of a dark stranger.
Row by row
they endlessly pile in,
Hell’s miniature army marches
over the porcelain wall,
a battalion to crush adulteress fable,
to occupy Her Fortress of Lies,
forever.
Silence now, forever. 


"Over the Porcelain Wall" Copyright © 2014 by D. Wickliff

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