Afterwards

29 TA YLOR DAVIS TAYLOR AFTERWARDS who beat and raped you in the alley by the small town's shoe store and classy dress shop— how you got back, were found curled on the floor, you did not remember and would startle us, my wife and I in bed an hour, knocking at the door, and weeks after I'd lie awake waiting. You would not trouble me, you'd say, and ate dry cereal, drank coffee. I'd ask if you were still dizzy when you walked, or couldn't you eat more. Apple, lilac, lily of the valley and the dark flowers beneath your eye blossomed. He crushed your face like a car whacking a bird. If I had touched you, you wouldn't have come back. It's five years, and you write to me from a cabin in the mountains little of yourself— how a friend has left to marry, how it's enough to wash one's face in the snow, to walk under the dark fir. ...