Claire Van Winkle | Admitting

As in:
The day we had her fixed we picked her up and she was stoned, heavy as a sack of rocks.
We hauled her home, doing our best not to stretch the translucent film of exposed skin—her shaved underside cross-stitched by that mad embroidery where they’d sealed her shut with one ragged seam.

As in:
She’d just been fixed and we were afraid we might break her.

Peach Picking

You said you picked me ’cause I wore white stockings & no lipstick & in the low light I looked a little like your kid sister Etta. Said you liked how I was all elbows. That you could tell from the get my pussy would taste like peaches.

You’re s’posed ta smile now, sugar pea, you said. So I did.

Before long, you got used to me—your favorite pit-stop on that beat-up highway from here to heaven and back.

I figured you’d tire quick, come to see that stockings run & lips crack & no matter how fresh & clean a thing starts, if your hands are dirty it’s gonna get stained. After some mileage I even told you plain: Peaches ain’t so pretty once they’re bruised.

True, you said. Then you spat on your rough palm, got yourself wet, hitched up my skirt & pushed into me. But damned if they don’t taste sweeter.

Mother Tongue

for Stacy

Stacy dreamt of cocks that spoke

Mexico City Spanish—rolling hard,

every syllable requiring tongue,

the body’s pestle grinding city dust

into its mortar. Coño de madre, she’d slur

through sleep, pressed into the dressing room’s

beat-up couch—restless,

sucking her thumb.

It was the only time she’d shut her mouth all night.

Inevitably the phone would ring, or one of us

would run a stocking and curse, and Stacy

would stir—irritable, like a child

whose pacifier has dropped out of reach.

She’d smack her lips, twist them to bare

her ruined teeth, and hiss What’re you putas lookin’ at?—

her voice all throat, her dripping thumb jabbing the air, slick

as meat on a spit.

Rabbits

She named her rabbits Zyprexa

and Xanax. Zyprexa made me

uneasy; he’d get loose

at all hours, wander to our bedroom,

and make small sounds like

the sucking of old shoes

in wet weather. He was the color

of dirty bed sheets and he smelled

like cabbage, but she loved him.

She called him Zippy.

When I asked about the scat on the floor

around his cage she said

the greenish lumps were pellets—

that rabbits ate their own crap

to get what they’d missed

the first time around.

She told me she liked rabbits

because they knew how things worked

and handled their shit

accordingly.

Claire Van Winkle writes poetry and prose. She teaches at several CUNY and SUNY schools and is the founder of the Rockaway Writers’ Workshop. In addition to her creative and academic pursuits, she works as a writing therapist researching and applying creative workshop strategies to inpatient psychiatric care. She is the recipient of several honors and awards. Her work appears in various publications including anthologies by Black Lawrence Press and Rogue Scholars.