Shira Telushkin
1.
I’m being fucked gently by a man named Gustave
And this time his mustache doesn’t bother me.
It’s both silky and harsh and they love it,
The small children whose bones he grinds up
Each morning, extracting a calcium so rich it
Produces a paint so pigmented that his art
Is never not praised.
2.
In this moment he is gripping my elbow as my head
Bangs gently on the headboard
(His thrusting more for show than for pleasure)
And tomorrow I will sit by his side and
whisper praises on demand,
mixing calcium with color for him to consider.
They mix well in the crook of my arm.
3.
Years ago, Gustave took me to Alexandria,
walked me down the 268 steps of the encircled catacomb,
and asked for my elbow.
I told him I needed to think about it.
4.
Do I need this elbow? Winged like a chicken
When I place hand on hip, dangerous around table edges,
Weaponized against pushy people in galleries.
The truth is, outside of Prague there is a church
built from the bones of dead monks and in the catacomb tombs
of Alexandria there are glass cases full of bony
fingers, torn ligaments and martyrs’ skulls.
5.
And the truth, inside of me is a small space
barely the size of a mixing bowl (small enough for
a skull), and this space is available for him,
should he need it, but my bones are my own.
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