Poetry by Larry Kaplun

After making love all day, in the bed, in the shower,
that water gently washing what we held wrapped
in hand and mouth, you whisper in my ear,
Can I ask you a favor?
 
And though I say yes, what you want is this:
for me to close my eyes, tighten the arm
and fist, and punch you hard in the chest,
only once, to practice what I would bring to a fight,
 
maybe in the dark alley, or
early morning walk in the park. Then
quickly, I remember as a child, beating up
my brother over and again, sometimes
 
with a belt double-wrapped in my hands,
like a mother punishing her child for being
born. Yet because I would do anything for the life
we have made together, I close my eyes, the body
 
closing into a fist like I have almost forgotten
how it happens, swinging to the center of your chest,
the thrust sending you against the tiles, turning
slightly, moaning as the cat struggling to open the door
 
comes in, pulling the curtain apart, bringing us to
what light of day remains. The moon watching us
with an unsteady eye, stars brightening in the sky,
the window offering all we can see in this dim light.
					

Before my mother came home from work,
the soft bruised fruit in her bag, a bouquet of carnations
beginning to wilt in their package, I taught myself,
in her bedroom, how to apply the rouge blush
over my cheekbones, mascara below the iris,
lipliner around the border of my painted lips.
I pulled a t-shirt over my head, a half-decent wig.
Then in the bathroom mirror, I saw the thinning
cotton fabric. Stretched out over time,
I did not make a plan B.

One day, thinking I heard footsteps
leading to the front door, I swear I thought
about taking the sleeping pills in her medicine chest,
praying it would instantly knock me out
for good. I didn't have time to fill a glass,
my heart filling with music the hammer makes
on the wall. It felt like the future was boiling
as water over the rim, as the ripping sound
pantyhose makes when pulling it too hard
over my legs, but by then, the footsteps
were gone. I didn't know much,
but I knew the tooth fairy was my mother
in just a bra, a cigarette hanging loose
from her lips, and in wearing those dresses
and gold hooped earrings, necklaces long and
shaking from side to side, I knew if what I had
made myself into was considered beautiful,
then I wanted to pierce it through my ears until
the holes disappeared, like small childhood scars.