The Terms of Exile
I.
I thought I could forgive you for anything
but my pockets fill with stones to throw at
you motherfucker
what gnarl you did with
your softness I love(d) once
you washed raw ink so gentle my back: scabbed map of home
your almost-wife’s bathroom, my shirt
pulled off cool water relief my breasts
small worlds you didn’t touch yet
my pockets fill with stones to drown your softness washed
my shame years holy I, the drunk I, the blank
night binge fuck groupie wreckage
but I: my stones
(& more than once your gnarl) but I: the night you washed
(& more than once the girls said no) but I: the wading
deep into silent how could you how could youhow could you
(& more than once I closed my eyes)
but I: the I’m sorry
II.
The blood of my first born is smeared across the doorway.
Don’t stop here with your tequila dance, your epic cock, your lost
& wandering, your grunt & plow, your scamper off.
When I say my first born, I mean myself. Isn’t that what they did
in the hospital, made me birth myself out of myself, baptized the girl
from the inside with saline & morphine, wrapped her in paper clothes,
fed her weak pudding & decaf until I said I’d take care of her.
So, you think birth is a thing that takes a man? This one took
imagination. What you did to those women. Your werewolf life
I must have sighted at breakfast: a quiet girl’s untouched toast.
III.
If you pray before every meal
but not before the small clasps of women’s garments,
what is it you worship?
Go to it.
Problematics of Confessionalism
I loved how brave he was to tell the story about that woman
in the back seat how he’d held her down decades ago
& learned never to do it again to never force a woman
down again except for the others he tells me aren’t real
not like that first one who was real & taught him never
to do it again & it’s true I was twenty-two & freaked out
after the poetry workshop we played “never have I ever”
& I had no clothes left because I’d done everything because
I’d been bad for year for bad years & that was good until
I was straddling him on the couch & didn’t want to be
bad anymore so I stood up shaking & he said whatever
you want babylove & I wanted to put on clothes
so he gave me soccer shorts & a t-shirt & tucked me
into the couch & I said I wanted to sleep next to him
& he said whatever you want babylove & it wasn’t anything
violent but the next time it happened I couldn’t walk
straight in the morning but I liked it I’m sure I was
half laughing when I told him how sore I was at brunch
I ordered a bloody mary & a pulled pork sandwich I couldn’t
keep down & felt bad he was paying boxed up leftovers
for his roommate & his roommate asked where I slept
& I said on the couch & he said he didn’t see me
on the couch & I said fine & he said he knew & it was fine
he wouldn’t tell anyone & this was being a gentleman
I was sure until I wasn’t sure it mattered at all what I wanted
when I was pulled from the dining room drunk & giggling
with undergrad boys I thought were too young for me
but one of them was cute
Stevie Edwards is the author of two poetry collections: Humanly (Small Doggies, 2015) and Good Grief (Write Bloody, 2012). Stevie’s chapbook, Sadness Workshop, was released from Button Poetry in January 2018. Stevie has an MFA from Cornell University and is a PhD candidate at University of North Texas. She is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine and Senior Editor in Book Development at YesYes Books.