from In the Gun Cabinet

In the gun cabinet, two playgrounds

one for me, one for mother

two men approach

from the fences

in the gun cabinet, a hand

my body, his body

inside her, then blackout

in the gun cabinet

I say he touched me [I am acted on]

I say he grabbed me [the body acted on]

[they ask me where] I show them [she starts crying]

I say it hurt [the act itself]

I say he hurt me [his body acted]

I say through acting [his hand] he hurt me

& implicitly I understood it was more than an act

Not meanness

Not violence (though it felt so) not thought

but something else, crushing

fear, transference, that

[in his smile] of which he thought [through me]

he could rid himself

[& his teeth while he did it] [why he only went so far]

& then finding that which he carried

[through his own mass] could not be relieved

finding his hand repeatedly upon me could not

he withdrew

each time

                                          & now, when she speaks to me

I can feel it, the story

her mother never told her (she remembered, then asked)

I can’t know (her silence) (which now contains itself) but reason

(from here, remember): inescapable fact of my body here, inescapable fact

of his & how it acted (he

transposed himself on her) & here

I ask myself if I should (I know I could)

(with all my reason) move myself through my idea

of him to forge a dialogue, because (go ahead) (reason only

goes so far) the mind requires power over not only others but its own

experience & so her five brothers & father, after bringing her to my grandmother

after drawing her a bath (not taking her to the hospital) found purpose (asking her        What

does he look like How tall What color What did he speak)

in finding him on the other side of the fence near the ravine, at its edge, after asking
       him

(god knows what) of his mind (his body silent) (as if) (they expected a reason) to answer        their questions

they set reason aside & lay their bodies (hands & feet &) the extensions of their bodies        into his like a cleansing