Fable
Shakthi Shrima
Say you’re the first woman in the world. Say you tell no one.
Say it’s July, the sky a chapped lip. Say there’s a storm warning
every day. Every day a blushfire so you strip away your shirt,
your chest shivering alive with little vowels.
Imagine yourself in mismatched halves like a broken clock.
Say there’s another woman, now. Say she’s turning away from you. Say
you want to see her face. Say this and close your eyes. Imagine
yourself wrinkle-soft, melting. Say you’re naked and still you don’t know
how to tell the truth, say you try to tell her anyway.
Say her palm is spit-sharp and sudden
over your mouth, the night snagged like nylon. Don’t, she says—
say you don’t bite down. No one’s around
to hear you crash together like hours, after all. I won't,*
you say. Rain whimpering on cinderblock—
I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
*after "Do-rag" by Phillip B. Williams
Say it’s July, the sky a chapped lip. Say there’s a storm warning
every day. Every day a blushfire so you strip away your shirt,
your chest shivering alive with little vowels.
Imagine yourself in mismatched halves like a broken clock.
Say there’s another woman, now. Say she’s turning away from you. Say
you want to see her face. Say this and close your eyes. Imagine
yourself wrinkle-soft, melting. Say you’re naked and still you don’t know
how to tell the truth, say you try to tell her anyway.
Say her palm is spit-sharp and sudden
over your mouth, the night snagged like nylon. Don’t, she says—
say you don’t bite down. No one’s around
to hear you crash together like hours, after all. I won't,*
you say. Rain whimpering on cinderblock—
I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
*after "Do-rag" by Phillip B. Williams
Shakthi Shrima’s work appears or is forthcoming in the Berkeley Poetry Review, the James Franco Review and Hobart, amongst others, and has been recognized by the YoungArts Foundation and the Poetry Society. Shakthi Shrima appears or is forthcoming in her unmade bed. She is the Literary Director at Winter Tangerine, and is presently a student at Princeton University.