Burning Bruise / Quiet by Judith Skillman

Burning Bruise

Do you flare for me?
How many others 
have you afflicted?
I see a log under the river, 
wood gone yellow,
a green bilious streak 
covered in purple-blues.
Let’s call a contusion 
by its proper names,
trauma inlaid,
car that ran over me 
when I was young
and carried my son on my hip,
husband who inflicted wounds 
with words and objects. 
Last night I tried to paint
Lydia’s teakettle. 
After I emptied 
this vessel 
into the stainless-steel sink
it sat patiently
as if waiting
to set sail for a story
about life and service. 




Quiet

I live seven years without children.
The kettle boils its rage away. Suppose
I live in a house under a moon or a stone.
I am old now. No one I need to please
lives with me. Except my self, the one
I tried to avoid with other bodies.
I soothed them at my expense—I own
no defense against those parts with eyes:

self-loathing, self-contempt, sadness, angst.
Left alone as a tot in the care of other
mothers and fathers, yes, the rain affirms,
they could not parent you. No, the furnace
hums, they put up with you but only for
a sum of money. A small girl. A worm.

Judith Skillman’s poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. A recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, Skillman’s recent collection is A Landscaped Garden for the Addict, Shanti Arts, 2021. She is the editor of When Home Is Not Safe: Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional and Physical Abuse, McFarland. Visit www.judithskillman.com.