Tautology

            The tickets in your breast pocket rest on
a pair of tickets and they’ve been punched
            already. There is no train. That’s your flickering smile

in the copy room as the machine runs off
            your poem, then another. What turns on
your turntable isn’t your records.

            It’s your last year. It’s the holster for your knife
and it’s your knife. We were in love
            when you needed a place to sleep

and I had washed off my face. We were in love
            when you were in love and my car alarm
went quiet. You opened my door

            with both hands, so I nodded back
at your bandaged wrists. When I hung
            the lace curtains, you took me to the fair. We heard

 the band. We saw the girls on stilts; they were shaped
            like themselves. I could count          
all your bones and then count all your bones. 

            I could take off my dress. Your dressings
could be cut with that knife. Because I was your girl
            I was never your girl.

 
Brittany Cavallaro

Brittany Cavallaro's poems have recently appeared in Gettysburg Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Indiana Review, Best New Poets 2011, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship and is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she holds a Chancellor's Fellowship.

Previous
Previous

What Kind of Person Are You?

Next
Next

Leitmotif