A Violence by Nicole Sealey

A Violence

You hear the high-pitched yowls of strays

fighting for scraps tossed from a kitchen window.

They sound like children you might have had.

Had you wanted children. Had you a maternal bone,

you would wrench it from your belly and fling it

from your fire escape. As if it were the stubborn

shard now lodged in your wrist. No, you would hide it.

Yes, you would hide it inside a barren nesting doll

you’ve had since you were a child. Its smile

reminds you of your father, who does not smile.

Nor does he believe you are his. “You look just like

your mother,” he says, “who looks just like a fire

of suspicious origin.” A body, I’ve read, can sustain

its own sick burning, its own hell, for hours.

It’s the mind. It’s the mind that cannot.