He climbs on me
by Regis Boff
He climbs on me at night
to do bug things.
“Remember our first time?”
He whispers
in his mean humming voice
of warm August night locusts.
I come apart.
“Always,” I whimper back to him.
He handsomely smoothes his antennae,
draping them over our pillows,
always the leading man.
“Are you ready to die?”
He hisses, like small talk.
“Yes, I will die.”
I plead.
He is pleased, and I am safe.
It knew I wasn’t going to tell.
I wrapped him in thick brown paper
and ran straight home
and froze my rape.
I could not leave it there.
Not knowing where it was.
At breakfast he asks,
“So what shall we do today?
So casually that I am confused.
He touches my hand,
his carapace hard and unalive.
I try to stop my thumb from caressing his shell.
In small back and forth dread familiarities.
“What would make you happy?” I say
He grins and I exhale.
I told him tonight his grubs live in me.
I feel them clawing for a way out.
Praying daddy longlegs scraping and burrowing for air.
His head on my stomach listening
and whirrs insect songs to them.
I stroke the needle hairs on his back.
I know he loves me.
My deceit holds no estate in him.
I have vanished.
My deceit holds no estate in him.I have vanished
into what has hurt me.
Life forbids I feel nothing at all.
