by Linda Rodriguez
The man and
woman in the frozen park
at midnight
are crazy. See
them
dance—come together,
her eyes
spitting, his aware of his sin.
Watch her
rigid stance
melt and his
slouch turn fierce.
With
choreographed impulse, her hand extends
to touch his
cheek. He jerks away
in pain or
something rougher.
Her
shoulders sag, then square
themselves
and shrug. She pivots,
ready to
leave. Now he reaches out,
spins her
around, draws her
close. She
struggles
against his
arms and chest, hands fluttering, while
he drags her
off the spotlit sidewalk.
Watch her
glance at the dark bushes, then
at the
strange hate
in his face.
See how grim
her own
grows, how
she tosses
her head toward the night,
as if to
say, “Go ahead.
Get it over
with. Rape me, kill me,
end it
somehow. You can’t want that
any more
than I do.”
Now his face
softens.
Once more
she tries to touch.
He sways
away from her outstretched fingertips.
They’re
crazy. Listen
to her
laugh, twisting loose
and whirling
away from her opponent
in the dance
or war
they’ve
staged here
where all
breath is visible
under the
streetlamps. How fast
she runs to
her car and leaves.
How
unprepared for this step he is.
He can’t
reach out
to stop her
until her car is rolling
down the
drive. In the rearview mirror,
she will see
his hand lift,
his mouth
open, his face twist,
and she will
notice
what a
stranger he is, older
and fatter
and sadder
than she
realized.
She will
stop for coffee and doughnuts
and warmth,
sit coughing and shivering
alone and
hate every man
who eyes
her. He will clutch his chest
alone under
the streetlamp,
bowing to
the audience of tree and frost,
then
stumble, suddenly blind,
to his car
and drink
himself to
bed, only to dream
of shrubs
hiding blood and bruised flesh
on the
frozen ground, of how
a man can
come so close to killing
what he
loves.
First
published in Heart’s Migration (Tia
Chucha Press, 2009)
Copyright © Linda
Rodriguez. All rights reserved.
Rodriguez is 2015 chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal
American Writer’s Caucus, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective
and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers
and Storytellers and Kansas City Cherokee Community.
lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com
lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com
