Last night you were fucking me. Had me bent
like I was waiting to be mounted. Only,
I think it was a dream. And in the dream
you were King Haggard—or maybe the Red Bull—
which would make me the unicorn. And maybe I was
because it felt like you were murdering me.
It felt like when you were finished I wouldn’t be
a unicorn anymore and you wouldn’t be
whatever you were anymore and for those
reasons alone I didn’t want you to stop.
I tried to tell you this, but you had me bent.
Your face was just a hand on my back, pressing.
I couldn’t speak so I gave it up. The way you used to
tell me I was the last unicorn. The way you seemed
to mean it—as if there could be an innocence or virginity
in having no face. And now you fuck me,
which is so much easier to understand.
Only the faces confuse me still. Yours seems to melt
and I replace it with whatever fits best at the time.
I trust my own face even less; it never changes,
but seems to lack even your dubious intentions.
I know that when you look at my face you don’t see
what I am. It used to be I didn’t see it either. I was new,
then. Before I spent nights dreaming you were waiting
to drown me in the ocean if I ever came that close.
~~~
Mary Coons is an Illinois native completing an MFA in creative writing at University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her work has previously appeared in Bad Pony and The Golden Key.
