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Gossip
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Gossip Oh, it was good. I was good. You’re so good, he said. A purple miniskirt and a black satin string. I smelled like cotton. I smoked cigarettes with my legs. I sheared a windmill. I ballpoint pen-etched our names. I was high school. I was sweet breath, and when I caught him in the laundry room, I pulled him down in the lint. I had gum in my mouth and I snapped it, and the gum reminded him of a cat’s crimp. I was a cat. I shaved. I was thin as a breeze. It is true in the yard, in the barn, by the flagpole. I had splinters in my shoulder, and milk paint in my veins. My back was a yarn scratch. I came. I came. Oh, you must have been in a rabbit hole when I came.You must have been a lawn mower blade.You were the blood, the mosquito in the stump bath, the black fly, the twig, the tick latching in the shade. It is true in the middle of the day. It is true in the car park, on the rooftop, the shingles thudding down like rain. Everything you heard. Our bodies, pale as stitched stars, made the shapes you say. Strange how he never once mentioned, all those times in the star bay, you: your stinking mouth; your eyes, rat-black, blank and ablaze. -17- ...