The Lover As A Cult Olivia Gatwood

After Sam Sax

And I am humming in an ankle length cotton dress
hanging sheets to dry on a thin wire.

A group of girls with swollen, brown nipples braid each others hair
while you watch, nod and direct their fingers over and through, over and through

even the memory of their muscles must be unlearned and retaught
by your singular truth—how to hold a spoon or crack an egg.

We are sitting on the cusp of Spring.
We are always sitting on the cusp of Spring.

I remember what it was like to be them—the girls—
pungent and ripe and apologizing for every audible movement

but also looking out at the infinite tongue
of a middle-America highway and feeling joy.

I don’t know what happened.

Maybe, the only reason we fall in love
is to see what we look like to someone else.

I remember when I first came here, you told me the laundry was my duty.
You said you liked how precise I was with cloth, praised the way I hung and folded.