Things that (Easily) Break, and: Verecundia

Abstract

Things that (Easily) Break, and: Verecundia Despy Boutris (bio) Things that (Easily) Break After Jamaal May Your mother’s good china.The dozen eggs you hauled home, no mind to the rain-soaked, oil-slicked roador your knack for falling. A cellphone screen when you have a tiled bathroom,high counters, and a kitten. The clavicle. Rules. Especially when they’re stupidrules. Like when you’re a kid and they say No talking! or No runningdown the ramp! as if not flying by like a windswept plastic bag is easy. As ifyou’re not a bird. As if. Sticks when you step on them. Sunglasses.And wine glasses. Have you heard of a dinner where not even a single glass breaks?The ice. When things are right. Day, how it breaks open, how it shattersthe night with sunrays, splits you from sleep, pierces your eyes with bladesof light. A fast when there are pancakes cooking. Garden-ripened tomatoes. Wetpaper bags. Your word. Mirrors. Don’t even get me started on headphones.Or hearts. An umbrella, but only [End Page 44] when the rain pours,only when the wind wails, only when you need that shelter. [End Page 45] Verecundia You don’t know how to write what happened without a shaking hand— how muchyou didn’t want it: his hands tightening on your hips, the cigarettes on his breathas he moved toward you and you leaned away and he curled closer, tonguethrusting into your mouth, through your teeth, trying to take you into him full bodyfrom where you lay in the foxtails, alone after the start-of-summer bonfire.Distant thunder, scent of mildew, raindrops pearling the tallgrass. The smokeon his breath, the cicadas’ steady screaming. Croaking frogs. That hand. Leaves dervishingin the breeze. That pressure you didn’t want to want, the way it felt. Truck careeningdown the highway. Sway of grass. You didn’t want it. Pulsing cricketcall.Please, you said. I don’t want it. You didn’t want it. Didn’t want your breathto turn to sirocco, his cigarette lips scalding your neck. Didn’t ask for it. That. [End Page 46] Despy Boutris Despy Boutris's work has been published or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, The Raleigh Review, The Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Palette Poetry, Third Coast, Gulf Coast Online, and more. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast. Copyright © 2019 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents