The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry

Unspoken

When I hug you tight at bedtime you wince in pain for the tender swelling of new breasts. Nothing is said, both of usaware of the covenant of silence we must maintain through the rending apart that is adolescence. But it won't always be confusion and hurting, the body will find itself through this pain; remember Michelangelo, who believed that in marble, form already exists, the artist's hands simply pulling it out into the world. I want to tell you about men: the pleasure of a lover's hands on skin you think may rip at elbows and knees stretching over a frame like clothes you've almost outgrown; of the moment when a woman first feels a baby's mouth at her breast, opening her like the hand of God in Genesis, the moment when all that led to this seems right. Instead I say, sweet dreams, for the secrets hidden under the blanket like a forbidden book I'm not supposed to knowyou'veread. 158 Unspoken ...