Warning Sign

He threw me over his shoulder in a caveman’s carry.

His townhouse full of partygoers, I struggled, Put me down!

Did they think it was a game? My hair grazed the ground.

One shoe threatened to fall. Were they daunted by his golfer’s build?

He hauled me up two flights—basement to bedroom—right

past Catholics with high SATs. Once he freed me, I’d see

him hurl the photo album at the wall. Was I okay? No one came to see.

That tantrum, months before the wound I’d ultimately carry,

started when his buddies razzed him. I pleaded, They took it right

out of my hands! I forgot that photo was even in there. I retreated down

the basement steps, but it only made the ugly in his eyes build.

He would not be laughed at, not on his own stomping ground.

When he ordered me upstairs, I stood my ground:

You can’t make me. But to help the crowd unsee

that photo of him in a mask of my red satin panties—lest it build

a reputation—I had to be sacrificed. Now I’m too volatile to carry.

Hyper-vigilant, some might say. Yet if I let my guard down,

chance may dredge up my mortified face. Even when men do right.

Upon seeing a firefighter bearing a survivor on his shoulders, I’m right

back on that staircase. The newsfeed rips the ground

from under me. Vowing to never again be upside down,

I too often cast myself as Wonder Woman. My first landlady I still see

flicking her cigarette: Frank ever put his hands on me, they’d carry 

him out in a pine box. Love a gentle man, and wager he won’t build

a gallows, your footing at his pleasure. No matter the life I build—

degrees, publications, travels, a love who treats me right—

I was that upended woman. Mentioning a black belt, a permit to carry,

I make some prick at a luncheon uneasy, so he probes for background:

Geez, what happened to you? He squints to see

which wire to cut, the blue or the red. But Calm down

is just another way of saying Bow down.

Of saying I’m afraid what an angry woman will burn or build. 

Of saying Look at you on that staircase. The whole party can see

up my skirt, bystanders knocking back beers while Mr. Divine-Right-

of-Kings carts me off like spoils of war, ass six feet off the ground.

I became, though once heaved into that caveman’s carry,

a woman who began spitting fire and rock into the sky in downright

anger, not knowing it would build for her solid ground,

that with each hiss of lava entering the sea, her voice might carry.