XENIA AND THE COLD MORNING.

[dadio]

Xenia has never felt so low,
Xenia has bathed and scrubbed,
but still feels unclean.

She wants him unsexed
from her body
his kisses removed
from lips and skin,
and those places within.

She wants to wash him away,
watch all aspects of him ,
drain down the plughole
with a big slurp,
feel her flesh tingle
with cleanness,
but she still senses him there
on skin, in hair, in her memory,
he’s still there.

Xenia wants
to unkiss his kisses,
untouch his touches,
his caresses. She sits and broods,
thinks of past times,
of him and those days,
those deeds done.

Xenia wants to be reborn,
be as new, be unaware
he existed or exists,
how long and big
her want to happen
and not lists.

She recalls
his blows, his punches
to out of the way places
(he never hits faces)
his cruel torments,
foul words,
poking finger,
poke poke poke,
the endless
taunting joke.

She feels so unclean,
so tainted, so used,
so undone.

There’s a bird singing
from outside her window,
a church bell rings,
from next door
a baby cries.

She closes her eyes,
something within her
hunches up and dies.