Three Poems
Claire Scott


Having Been Raped On The Back Seat Of My Honda​
 
I thought it would be over with bottles of bourbon stashed under sweaters
             in the second drawer
                 
I thought it would be over with two white lines on a mirror, cut with the queen of         
             spades
 
I thought it would be over when the light was dim enough when I had wine enough when he              
             was tender enough
 
I thought it would be over when I took a razor to my thighs, my breasts
             the relief of red seeping through slashes
 
It seems I am unable to remember to forget that
             it will never be over


Survivor
 
skin blistered & blackened
peeling in sheets of anguish         
footprints etched on
 
burning sand, the stench of fish
a child’s sandal, the moan
of waves washing
              swollen bodies
 
terror
walks on stilts
of lightning
 
twisted bicycles whip by,
seared backpacks, empty strollers,
laptops & lounge chairs
                   
flaming cardboard
figures of neighbors
smiling just hours ago
 
a survivor
of a bored lunatic, thumb
on a red button at three am
 
a twenty gigaton explosion
the world spins on a flaming axis
fireballs sear the sky
 
only a few survive
wandering beaches with
whale bones & withered seagrass
 
waiting for life’s last exhale
to save them from themselves


Unbearable
 
I can’t bear to see his black-bruised eye
the jagged slash on his cheek still oozing
 
blood, I can’t bear to see his tender smile as
if it never happened: no fight, nothing
 
thrown, no ER, no lies to the young doctor
about tripping and cutting himself
 
no knowing I was bourbon-blitzed &
hurled an empty bottle that caught
 
his face, me with usually lousy aim
for once made a perfect throw
 
I can’t bear to see him checking mirrors,
elevator doors or the flat side of a knife
 
looking away when he sees me watching
so I won’t feel like the-wretched-excuse-of-a-wife that I really am
 
I no longer let him touch me
I sleep sleepless on the shabby
 
sofa, in the tight hours
of after-that-night
 
I can never forgive him for
what I did to him

​ 

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called.

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