After Yet Another Man Tells Me 
- After Yet Another Man Tells Me I Don’t Want to Hurt You
Because after we slaughtered the lamb, I stayedand helped to skin the head and cut out the tongue.Because my tongue weighs heavy as a key, and I too can bejust as brass. Because I sleep near a steak knife
where condoms should go. Because I’m only missinga rib, which I like to think a bird of prey flew offwith in its talons—a curved arrow, a piece of moon, a fang.Call me salted away and not withheld. Call me a rabbit
and not a speeding car. And you’re the gallant one,aren’t you? So noble, always doing the right thing. Why,you’re a regular squire! Never lily-livered. Never falsehearted.Because it’s not like every woman wasn’t already
stunned from the moment a man rolled off of herand called her a mistake, from the moment she was forcedto lie there like an old farm tool because what elsecould she do, really, and then later she walked
down the street to her job and another man barkedat her, Smile! Because wouldn’t she look so much prettier?Because no wonder he left—and how kind of himnot to lead her on, how valiant to know his own heart
right from the get-go. Because you’re a constellationthat light pollution has faded over time. Call mea table built from barn wood. Call me a bucket of ashesand rain set out by the front door. And call me tender-
hearted, if you must, because when I sliced offthe dead lamb’s ear, I did so lovingly, which meanswithout flinching. Because it was one of the only partswe didn’t freeze for winter, didn’t right then and there [End Page 44]
boil or fry up or stew. Because some things are meant to bediscarded, and because you just can’t help the way you feel,like how I cut the skin from the bone and it yieldedto my knife, but I wouldn’t call it soft. [End Page 45]
ANNE BARNGROVER is the author of Yell Hound Blues and coauthor with Avni Vyas of the chapbook Candy in Our Brains. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in North American Review, Copper Nickel, Harpur Palate, Crazyhorse, and Mid-American Review, among others. She holds an MFA from Florida State University and a PhD from the University of Missouri.
