An impossible story of violence
makes my therapist gasp.
But I tell my new lover what I have
done with my own wrinkled hands, and
he says, People own their problems.
They belong to them like possessions,
like belonging. It is not right to steal.
Forgive me, I beg of that child.
I need to leave you
behind to go forward
into a future that cannot love you.
Perhaps I am a beast at best.
My love sweats his tears,
leans in at the lip of the sink, drips salt,
kisses
the top of my head. and turns my chin up.
Process notes go here.
Shelli Hoppe’s work has appeared in Saw Palm, Titled House, and The Massachusetts Review, among others. She left teaching for public health and is earning an MFA at Warren Wilson in poetry, where she is a Renate Wood Scholar.