Inside the Foxhole
My features are small,
expressionless. My lovers say
I look like a doll. Today
I climbed into a black dollhouse
& felt more at home than anywhere
I’ve ever been. The wild in me
stopped howling, stopped pulsing
through my legs. Egyptians used mirrors
to reflect light into dark spaces.
As I walk to my apartment, the buildings fill
dim streets with the last segment of sunlight.
I begin thinking of how the wetness
between my legs might spill out
of my black lace panties & fill the gutter
with quicksilver. The Gibbous Moon above
Newark Penn Station watches me.
I wait for her to call me, to say,
hide where I can’t find you.
She hasn’t called me by name
since I walked home
with runs in my stockings.
I heard her voice on the wind
once say: If we believed in God,
we’d both be damned. I told her
I liked soft violence best,
like a starling fallen into a foxhole.
But didn’t tell her I cried
during a dream I had
of holding my melting planet.
Above me, a plane flies
across the tangerine sky
leaving a contrail. Instead of one long, perfect
white streak, it comes out in Braille.
The contrail reads: Never have I been so alone.
With no way of feeling those words,
I walk more quickly. In my apartment,
I striptease for the woman I’m seeing.
She pushes me on my bed.
Her hands are cold. She licks quicksilver
from between my legs. Stops.
Says she can taste the champagne I drank—
can hear giddy bubbles filling each
& every one of my moans. Sometimes I want
to say: if only your body was a home,
if only I wasn’t hollow like a doll.
Laura Villareal is from a tiny town in Texas with more cows than people. She earned her MFA from Rutgers University--Newark. Her work has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, Apogee, Sakura Review, Drunken Boat, Crab Fat Magazine and others.