Around the First by Theresa Senato Edwards

Around the First

Attic room: unmade twin beds
old, dirty casement windows
needing curtains to hide
the way he broke inside her silence.

Old, dirty casement windows
cracked from the rain within:
the way he broke inside her silence.
Ceiling, pitched and peeling

cracked from the rain within,
low and suffocating.
Ceiling, pitched and peeling,
the smell of skin

low and suffocating
in thick teenage air.
The smell of skin
lit the lamp.

by Theresa Senato Edwards, first published in The Music of Hands.

Editor’s Note: The repetition in this poem mirrors the way trauma can often feel—as if there is no escape.