The Sky The Sky- Same As It

When You Are Five, You Know Your Age Down To The Month. Even In Your Twenties, You Know How Old You Are. I'm Twenty-three You Say, Or Maybe Twenty-seven. But Then In Your Thirties, Something Strange Starts To Happen. It Is A Mere Hiccup At First, An Instant Of Hesitation. How Old Are You? Oh, I'm--you Start Confidently, But Then You Stop. You Were Going To Say Thirty-three, But You Are Not. You're Thirty-five. And Then You're Bothered, Because You Wonder If This Is The Beginning Of The End. It Is, Of Course, But It's Decades Before You Admit It.

...poking A Lump Of Red Jello That Jiggles Outrageously, Like A Breast I Once Knew.

I'm Afraid To Breathe In Case I Break The Spell

The More Distressing The Memory, The More Persistent It's Presence.

Afterward, I Curl Around Her. We Lie In Silence Until Darkness Falls, And Then, Haltingly, She Begins To Talk...she Speaks Without Need Or Even Room For Response, So I Simply Hold Her And Stroke Her Hair. She Talks Of The Pain, Grief, And Horror Of The Past Four Years; Of Learning To Cope With Being The Wife Of A Man So Violent And Unpredictable His Touch Made Her Skin Crawl And Of Thinking, Until Quite Recently, That She'd Finally Managed To Do That. And Then, Finally, Of How My Appearance Had Forced Her To Realize She Hadn't Learned To Cope At All.