Bear Violence
Chews at my face, nose first, cheeks,
two red lips.
Someone get me
handkerchief, tea towel, washcloth.
Blood won’t scab, won’t listen,
to stop like a hardness eventually
becomes soft.
I sit. I gather
evidence against you, and you, and him.
Dark open fields of lost replace
savage memories,
the closed doors,
the lights off, the way a girl is gone,
hovers to don a grimace, bears loose
in the neighborhood, a body could
get mauled.
So hide in the closet,
the bathroom, car trunk, until
you hear the shuffle, the slight
growl.
I don’t want to ruffle
fur, let claws penetrate skin
and skin, should I remember to heal?
Snippets let the pain
in slow as a probe, looking
in my body for black nights,
no stars.
Sarah Lilius is the author of the chapbooks What Becomes Within (ELJ Editions, 2014), The Heart Factory (Black Cat Moon Press, 2016), GIRL (dancing girl press. 2017), and Thirsty Bones (Blood Pudding Press). Selected publications include Denver Quarterly, Court Green, BlazeVOX, Bluestem, Tinderbox, Hermeneutic Chaos, Stirring, Luna Luna Magazine, Entropy, and Flapperhouse. In 2016, Sarah was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarah lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two sons. Sarah can be reached online at sarahlilius.com.