This case was not about a penis. –Lisa Kemler, defense attorney

The fantasy was a little blot

on your cornea, indelible red

in the morning mush bowl.

Where did it come from? Surely not

your own impossible head,

always burning & yet whole.

*

Did you visualize it after—not the act

(blood is old hat for women), but his

orphaned scrap—soft folds luminescent

with moon & waiting in a field

purpled with night, the itch & prick

of grass conjuring a ghost of heat as nerves

try to stir beneath a canopy of ravenous gnats.

*

Theatrically oversized in daylight:

the ragged-edged shadow it threw

as it was plucked from the ground

& held up like a muddy diamond

dug from the pit the policemen

had all imagined themselves into.

*

The next day, simple gore of another dawn—

the sun’s cruel hush of white like a blanket

on the smoldering pink. What did they want you to say?

The too-human slump of the fatly oblivious

clouds cast a reminder: god is already stuffed

with regrets. Maybe, with the little morsel

in your hand, you still felt him on top of you.

*

After an ordeal, panic congeals

at the back of the tongue. Almost sweet

in the morning, you can spread it

like jam across your toast. This I know.

*

Lorena, I can’t say I haven’t wanted to.

There was a time when I fell asleep

sucking on prayer like a kerosene lozenge

each night. But in bed I didn’t dare

swallow or unhinge my flaming jaw before God,

who must have finally said to you:

metaphor will not do.