No 3: A COLD, COLD NIGHT.

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

REBECCA KOPELMAN

In the winter you wrote a poem about your hissing radiator, and another about the sound of your washing machine. 

It feels like we’re weathering a storm,

You told me,

Like we’re waiting out something big

There I was, growing thin on cigarettes and ketamine and fear, curled in your arms, agreeing feverishly with your thoughts on household appliances.

My eyes were so big and wet and mournful then;

I looked like one of the Manson girls, holding a long-dead  god inside me.

I loved you so much it knotted my stomach, 

I lived inside the stillness before we kissed.

My heart was slick in my chest that winter

Its hot thump made me sick

I’m almost the same age you were then,

When you wrote that you smoked too much but your friends were pretty

Oh, to be held by somebody I can stand

Just to be somebody I can stand

But how can I love you properly,

When my father’s hands shake?