Whisper

He’ll read you Emily Dickinson when he takes you out
A wounded deer leaps the highest
Whispered
  Into
  Your
  Ear
Quietly

You don’t know what it means, but
his voice milks you until
it doesn’t matter that his hands
are too rough and
his breath smells like the inside of cra-
cked bottle of bourbon
burning its way into the innermost chambers
of you

Pink cherries dot the expanse of your
sundress that he says is
Too babyish, sweets
  You’re a big girl now, aren’t you?

Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.

He says and you think how romantic even though his hands
bruise your skin and he is a solid mass bearing down on you until
you suffocate on the passion he says you share
how romantic

Your parents do eventually inquire
over the bruises dotting the expanse of your pale
skin, like poems themselves lost in the strong undercurrent
of desolation running parallel to your body
But you say oh, I fell and start wearing long sleeves

It breaks your heart when they never ask again.

My girl
He says to you while he’s cleaning you up
and your tears leave watermarks on his leather
jacket while your wounds are only half visible
under the sliver of moonlight
Shining in through the tinted windows of his
Black SUV
My girl

Yours
You promise even though you strongly suspect
even he doesn’t know what his poetry means at this point
That even he is a little lost as to what  Emily Dickinson was talking about
or what Neruda meant when he wrote about great loves
Yours