December 6th, 2011
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Francesca Bell
FIRST RESPONDERS
The day I finally rose staggering
from our bed of kryptonite,
gnawed free from the anchor
that dragged its own boat down
with it, and walked out,
you stopped me in the drive
to set one thing straight:
were I to sleep, even once,
with anyone else, you would never,
ever, ever take me back.
It wasn’t hard to arrange that very day
and many, many days after,
that whole long spring and summer,
and sometimes more than once a day
when I felt like it, to take a man,
pretty much any man, to bed
or the shower or the high-rise
office building floor. Having been,
despite years of accusations and interrogations,
as steadfast and inert as a corpse,
I began slowly to revive, each man’s hands
on me like a paramedic’s feeling
for a pulse, their mouths bent
on resuscitation, their bodies thrusting
up inside me insistently the way a doctor
pushes and pushes on a stopped heart
trying to turn it back on, every stroke
powering a stroke of my own leaden arms
fighting, struggling from down deep
through thick, sucking water
as I fucked my way upward,
one man at a time, and came
bursting, breathless, back to life.
–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
June 6th, 2010
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Francesca Bell
WITH A LITTLE EDUCATION
This is what became of that homely high school boy
with the fine hands and big brain. He ended up sliding
his fingers all day into the vaginas of other men’s wives.
Expensive women who book six months in advance
to take off their clothes for him. He keeps them
waiting under a harsh light and thin sheet
before delivering their silver-spoon babies and bad news,
before roving his skilled hands over all that cheerful flesh
that used to be firmly out of his reach. They send him
flowers now and page him after hours, tell him
when their sex lives are painful or dry up entirely.
He coaches them to remind their deal-making,
deposition-taking husbands of the grave
importance of foreplay. He touches their sleeves
as they leave with what could only be mistaken
for tenderness, and smiles, knowing they wonder
what he does with his hands at night. How different
his landscape looks now: his rolling stool like a throne,
the world he has mastered spread glorious before him.
If only he had known, back when he was pimpled
and pained that even the hearts of the beautiful burn
in the third trimester, and that age bursts
in without mercy on everyone, even those girls
as effervescent and confusing as champagne.
If only he could have imagined how easy
it would be, with a little education,
to wake each morning to a string of women
naked in his office and ready just for him.
–from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
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May 4th, 2010
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Francesca Bell
NARROW OPENINGS
A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
and a contentious woman are alike.
—Proverbs 27:15
It’s hot. The clouds’ soft faces
are closed, a billowing refusal,
and I want to quarrel
with my lover who just sits
risen dull from a bed we left
damp as horses that have run
for a long time. Hair hangs,
humid and tangled, on my neck,
but he won’t unlatch
the window. Doesn’t like
the noise, he says. I don’t
like him very much. I want
to argue until anger splits me
like flowers that burst across
my short dress. I choose
lipstick to startle him,
Ultra Violent, an assault
of color. He just watches,
his hair still holding
the shape of my hands. Raising
my legs, I let the mirror catch
me, throw him bare skin tingling
sweat. Going for a walk,
I say, slipping into the narrow openings
of sandals, smiling as anger rises
in his dim face. Down each block
I think of him pacing
the closed rooms, stupid and lovely.
Face glowing, I am an August peach.
And my feet slapping
the sidewalk are a dance
as good, as constant, as rain.
–from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
September 26th, 2008
Francesca Bell
NARROW OPENINGS
A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
and a contentious woman are alike.
—Proverbs 27:15It’s hot. The clouds’ soft faces
are closed, a billowing refusal,
and I want to quarrel
with my lover who just sits
risen dull from a bed we left
damp as horses that have run
for a long time. Hair hangs,
humid and tangled, on my neck,
but he won’t unlatch
the window. Doesn’t like
the noise, he says. I don’t
like him very much. I want
to argue until anger splits me
like flowers that burst across
my short dress. I choose
lipstick to startle him,
Ultra Violent, an assault
of color. He just watches,
his hair still holding
the shape of my hands. Raising
my legs, I let the mirror catch
me, throw him bare skin tingling
sweat. Going for a walk,
I say, slipping into the narrow openings
of sandals, smiling as anger rises
in his dim face. Down each block
I think of him pacing
the closed rooms, stupid and lovely.
Face glowing, I am an August peach.
And my feet slapping
the sidewalk are a dance
as good, as constant, as rain.
–from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
