ARIADNE'S STRING 

 

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I know about disease—enough

                    to understand I am not

 

diseased. The nights I vomited

off the balcony and sat back down

 

to watch one man and another

congregate within an intersection’s

 

                    barren ribcage.

John inside letting his skin turn

 

 

*

 

pruney in the bath’s chilled water.

 

John pinning me in an alley against

 

the back wall of the posh restaurant

 

where he washed dishes. He slipped

 

 

*

 

                    a finger in my mouth,

and said I was such a good girl.

 

John moving a cigarette back and forth—

 

hip to lip until the smoke’s thin

                    thread webbed around him.

 

 

*

 

I know the songs a machine sings

as it looks into the skull’s architecture,

 

                        into the brain’s weak

spotlight. I know one kindness

 

begets another kindness—then we are all

 

kind. Thank you, I said to neighbors

who humored me, and to doctors

 

 

*

 

I said, My brain is having a period

 

of reflection. My brain is this, my brain is that—

 

I never want to see that combination

 

of letters again. It is dead; wrap it in newspaper

 

 

*

 

                    and set it on the curb

for the city to haul away. It’s junk

 

or an animal too pathetic to give

a proper burial—and how do you

 

give a burial to a name? How do you

                    leave it on an island

 

                    somewhere in memory?

 

In the other room, John’s splashing

like a gentle tide held in a tumbler—

 

 

*

 

tilt it back once and joy drips from the lip,

 

tilt it back twice and pain, tilt it back

                    and back and back

 

until I can say I know not what a curse is

 

 

*

 

because in memory, those nights

are myriad, a slow plod then over.

 

Between them, a bus’ pumping

engine, the fluorescent lights

 

inside it, a lesion within the city’s

                    darkened brain—

 

a sword with a thread tied to its hilt; yes,

 

 

*

 

I know disease. It’s my brother,

and he is dead and buried

 

under the bed that birthed him.

                    His tomb like a skull

 

like an island, like the hooves

that fly out from under the bulls

 

 

*

 

of John’s favorite sport—the men, rag-

 

dolls until they crash into the dirt. John

 

rapt like a junkie, hunched over until pop

 

he claps and says, Hell for eight seconds.

 

 

*

 

                    This is the man

I love—his oddjobs, his hankerings,

 

the way his body can burst through mine

 

in rage or lust. I know enough

to let my jaw go slack and hum

 

until he’s ready to let me tie

                    my tongue with him.

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BIO:

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​Rivka Clifton is the transfemme author of Muzzle (JackLeg Press) as well as the chapbooks MOT and Agape (from Osmanthus Press). She has work in: Pleiades, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, and other magazines.

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