Morgan Blalock

Hollins University

I watch you across the table: bent neck,

uneven teeth, red plate, ceramic cup, comma eyebrows—

everything about you is so singular, there is no room for me

in this scene, no room in this kitchen

for the incredible hugeness of my feelings

and the silence that I mop up with bread.

Before I went to the store this morning

to buy the bread with which I am now filling

the places that wanted me to tell you how I felt, I saw

a strand of hair curled on your bathroom tile

like a short, slim snake

and I was not sure which of ours it was.

Often when we walk together, people ask

if we are sisters and I want to cover your body

with my own right then, right there, so intimately

on the sidewalk, want to make these people watch

your face shudder and your body stretch feverishly

so they all know that you and I are not family.

I am not your sister, I am not really your anything;

I just have made you a dinner

that you are not eating and later when we make love

it will not tie us together any more than that second

when you first touched the space under my jaw

and I felt the cold metal of your rings,

startling—

and now I am startled by how similar we must look

across from one another at the table,

and by your refusal to eat.

Often when we walk together, people ask

if we are sisters and I want to cover your body

with my own right then, right there, so intimately

on the sidewalk, want to make these people watch

your face shudder and your body stretch feverishly

so they all know that you and I are not family.

I am not your sister, I am not really your anything;

I just have made you a dinner

that you are not eating and later when we make love

it will not tie us together any more than that second

when you first touched the space under my jaw

and I felt the cold metal of your rings,

startling—

and now I am startled by how similar we must look

across from one another at the table,

and by your refusal to eat.