while i nibbled his leftovers,/i stole his little key covered in grease/from unwashed fingers and

A Map of the Backyard
Jessica McHugh

Feminine as the grave,
You are blushing dirt combed over a bad dream.
Oh how you sparkle,
like a halo, red and spreading:
a stain with a name
Hanging like sweat around a boy’s neck
after a night of catching fireflies
     like you.

You were made for him, he said.
Like a sculpture in the foyer
     a perfectly mixed martini
     a prescription, promptly filled

He took you like medicine:
the cure for a chronic illness flaring with promises
to loosen the mason jar lid
sealing his wounds while closing you in.
He kept his word the way he kept the house dark
and quiet
So you didn’t fear the showdown in his kiss
or find the poetry
     in your panic.

You were made for him, he insisted.
Like a pearl plucked from the surf
     a secret kind of laughter
     a spiritual mantra

He rang the church bells in you
The way a lid seals a firefly in a jar:
It shines until it can’t.
But panic is a secret kind of laughter too.
It’s a play—right stage, wrong scene—
not performed but opened
like the First Wound, which, for some,
     the weeping never stops.

Let panic twist the lid for you.
Draw the shades, clean the sheets.
Bundle up the fragments of a former life
And climb out of the dark.
Oh how you sparkle,
like his halo, red and spreading,
more name than stain.

He burned so many holes in you,
There are plenty of places to bury him.