Mathew Serback

Go Ahead Give Your Body to the Romans

I forget who I am

trying to convince; this woman

or myself. Although most of the time

she is not a woman,

more of this traced outline I place delicately on the bed

next to me;

any sort of excuse

to keep me awake.

She is a real woman, right

now sitting across from me on the subway.

She’s questioning my beliefs,

I’m questioning whether this conversation needs to exist.

She shakes her head,

locks of brown, lost in mahogany eyes,

I’ve always been fond

of digging around in the dirt,

and she tells me, “Vous n'écoutez pas.”.

But she’s smiling

while just trying to burrow beneath my skin,

her probing fingers.

She’s scratching her temple,

a goddess head for sure, and starts speaking

in foreign tongue. Feels like

she is stretching out her S’s, and asks me

if I’m interested

in eating. I think forbidden fruit;

there is a burning in the pit

of my stomach; and in my loins.

The other her, the one that I speak softly to

on my bed sheets, is telling me,

just because there are sparks that doesn’t mean

you will catch fire.

The real woman, who sits with me

leaves, like becoming the fall,

in an untimely manor.

She has to go, hurry, hâte,

is going to give her body to the Romans.

I ask that she will her soul to me.

but not through the beads of oil

and wine. I do not want her

blood on my hands; I want that piece

of her soul that tastes like the lie

of omission.

She is twisting me around her middle finger,

like those locks

of her hair, she is going to give me the keys

to the kingdom.