Trauma Work

Fire in a pit spits its heat in a circle that holds me on the ashy side.
You hired Amish men to dig your well.
The fire bursts from the pit, lights up the musty blanket
you’ve wrapped me in.

I said this whole thing makes me uncomfortable,
but you were wiser than me.   
Out of the circle locusts explode from the flame.

In the chair you tapped my knees with your closed fists.
You were close. Your breath, a breeze, traced old trauma on my skin.

This touch, this whisper and whiff
inside of which I disappear. I murmur and sigh.

Body, I am taken by your undertow.
What force, what rip, what flame. 

MARY JANE NEALON

Mary Jane Nealon, gifted time from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; Breadloaf Writers Conference; and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, has two poetry books: Rogue Apostle and Immaculate Fuel (Four Way Books, NY) and a memoir, Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life (Graywolf). She lives in Missoula, Montana.