Monica Mankin

After the Rape

You want the triumph. I know.
I want to be Recluse or Widow—

a violin-shape scathing windowpane,
an hourglass dangling upside-down

in a doorway on strong thread
spun from dust—marked with venom,

with blood I wear instead of a scream.
I want to sleep in a corner of ceiling

where as long as I am still I will be left
alone. You want to hear I’ve persevered,

forgiven the culprit, and swept clean
the resentment, as if it were a vacant web,

from my human heart. You want me
to get over it. I want to think I will.

But tell me how, without this pregnant pause
of rage, am I to do it? Tell me how else

I might crawl out of my weak and stupid self
to swallow the world with its swollen sac

of moon and the thousands of gleaming wet
spiderlings that scatter.

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