TWO POEMS

CW: SA

[I am assaulted in a public park]

but the walk home is like any other. 

I stand, clear the woodchips from my knee,

and there are sprinklers hissing in the distance, 

drooling over uncut lawns, and 

there’s that sky too—black, with a tint

of violet—a whole bruise if you will,

or something like one. Breathtaking

overhang of damage. Or else, just a sky. 

Once, I was a girl carrying a neighborhood

friend on my back. His weight was not so

crushing, though the two of us

were slightly bent, adjusting

to one another like prescriptions. 

Blood seeped from his knees and I

could think only of fruit, the soft red 

kind that grows softer with age and

neglect. This is not dissimilar,

though in many ways, it is.

I still carried a man home. And like 

blood, his semen stained my clothes.

                                      I am trying to put a comfort in this,

                                                           something to say that it happened

                                          but that it also ended. Tiny crescent

                                                                         of hope, like a nail splintering. 

                                                                                   Listen. I dragged home a mouthful of seeds.

                                                                      This is only a poem about it. 

The Author’s Last Rape Poem

Because I’m through with 

                                                                                           The quiet shift in 

                      We struggle to reckon with 

                                                                              It goes like 

             I say, a destruction has      

                                                            We sit at a table with     

                                                                                                       Talk only of      

                                                   The hole, still      

 No remedy for

                                                                               Some kind of feeling to

                         Parse first, the locations of

                                                                                                                  Patience, like      

                                      No, that will not

Erase the      

                                                                               And the     

                          Do you know my      

                                                               Tired of      

                                                                                                          Sitting, I     

          What is      

                                             Language is a

                                                                                                                   What I mean is      

                                                                              What do I      

Sorry, but      

                          Haven’t I already said I’m      

                                                                                  There’s nothing in the lines about
            The sky was clear when      

                                                         The morning after was      

                                                                                                          If we name the moral, it’s

                          Either way, I      

                                                                   To kill the

Nothing ever   

                                                 Can’t describe the

                                                                                                Sick of every    

         Aren’t you tired of     

                                                                       Aren’t you bored of     

                           And what is left of     

                                                                                                                    In my grief, I     

                                               Still, I dream of     

                                                                                                       I won’t say I     

I won’t say

Spencer Williams is from Chula Vista, California. She is the author of the chapbook Alien Pink (The Atlas Review, 2017) and has work featured in Apogee, Bright Wall/Dark Room, PANK, Always Crashing, and more. She received BAs in English and Cinematic Arts from University of Iowa, and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Rutgers University-Newark.