The Fiddleback

poem by Eve Wood

You hit hard,
But I hit you harder.
Rough-hewn, seedy round the edges,
You broke the night with your body
Reaching up and out
To flag me down
To wind me up
With the promise of freedom.
Your pretty yellow blossoms only bloom at the top—
Bullying, slack-jawed fucking flowers,
A swarm of them
In my mouth, in my eyes
Floating in the blood that pools in my ears.

You know me
But I know you better—
Mouth into bark,
My head like a gavel struck
At the base, hands flying forward
Like calling the window’s bluff with my fist,
Like sex,
Like fat men in fedoras
Who’ve never pissed in a field, in a stream,
On a tree.

——–
Eve Wood