oh Mommy, the terrible stories he tells me, this man
you sleep with, this man
I wake with, monologues
of pain and desperation, confessions of self-loathing-
I lie between your bodies at night
just as I live between you
during the day.

say "Salome" in that way again,
that way that makes you
seem angry and fierce.
"I'm your mother!," you scream
echoes in my head on nights under him –
this affair of yours
is destroying me.
so I am asking again for the head of your lover, the man
and your faith has caused the abandoned
to stare full into me-
half-deity sprawled bare on the bed,
in a place not-quite empty –
please save me.