by Allsion Blevins

After the fall, I call out for my wife. I can’t cry. I can’t feel pain now.
I call out for my wife, aware my breasts and belly hang like some white
unimaginable fruit—inedible and overripe. I call out because I can’t rise
from my hands and knees until some witness lifts me on to my feet. I won’t

cry or feel until she is here with her arms around me—shame is the pain
I was waiting for. Wet and drooping, I’ve ruined sex night, I sob into her
shoulder. When I hobble from the bathroom, she is ordering a shower aid
from the medical supply store.

I want to fall, to watch your body bend,
pick me up, feel your bicep on my back, but you already cleaned the house
today. I want to ask you to touch me, but it is Wednesday—shot day—
and you’ve already loaded the injector, swiped in outward concentric circles,

pinched my stretched and marked skin between your thumb and forefinger.
No woman could expose herself to any more than your hands touching me like this.

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Allison Blevins received her MFA at Queens University of Charlotte. She is the author of the chapbooks Susurration (Blue Lyra Press, 2019), Letters to Joan (Lithic Press, 2019), and A Season for Speaking (Seven Kitchens Press, 2019), part of the Robin Becker series. Her book Slowly/Suddenly is forthcoming in 2021 (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). She is the Director of Small Harbor Publishing and the Poetry Editor at Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in such journals as Mid-American Review, the minnesota review, Raleigh Review, and Sinister Wisdom. She lives in Missouri with her wife and three children where she co-organizes the Downtown Poetry reading series. For more information visit http://www.allisonblevins.com.