Print This Postwig confessional/ the bedroom
Winter 1996
Bedtime (I says my name, hoping he will call it out)
it is just me (touch me like that velvet zodiac woman)
covered in collapsible silence (like the gal I once was)
until dawn (singing in church)
she clings to me (praying for honor)
like moisture in the desert (satin red)
on her seed coat. ( even vestiges of clouds hold rain)
Then she replaces me (but you gotta pull it from the sky)
every time the UPS man arrives (sing it, whistle with your lips, dance)
or when down Patton Ave to catch night. (lift up the tawny clouds, find a rhythm)
She stuffs me in the back of boxes (push them back)
I gasp and rebuff (use your hands)
any compliments— I thought (not beyond that)
about her hiding swollen pockets (remain there in the quiet)
of gray that envelope her (there is a gal there waiting)
place that sucked him (dying to be rained on)
in and released him. (be patient)
Like the blues (please patience)
I need a little steam heat (the body is water)
is what you play as you (the body ain’t no stone)
wait until he comes. (don’t leave)
He lifts up from the scent, (it’s lonely)
colostomy bag opening. (please)
He puts on his pants (hold me)
Barely touches the ashy hip (sweet)
Vaseline smooth. (dewy trip)
You lie there. (he hands the towel)
I, shifted over, see myself (I wash)
Sin in the mirror. (looking)
I don’t like what I’ve become (baby-bloated body)
what has become of us. (painfully still)
I don’t nap (but he doesn’t see or know)
when you need me; (this can’t be love)
Beauty never sleeps (not this way)
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Colena Corbett lives between North and South Carolina. She has studied poetry at the Split Rock Arts Foundation at the University of Minnesota, The Hurston-Wright Foundation at American University, the Kentucky Women Writers’ Conference, and the Callaloo Writers’ Workshop at Brown University. Her work has been published in Obsidian III, Folio Journal and elsewhere. She is completing her MFA at the University of South Carolina.
