Within the Crowd

by Michael Tugendhat

I can hear a train
ride over my thighs

in shivers
she shakes with vibrato.

Chugs on cadence
at distance.

I will never again
mistake him

as he spits
into our trench

on our
bald spots.

I can see his tongue
stretch out cold.

He lit her hands
and then her chest.

The womb, they said
would be the quickest to burn.

And they did burn
until her eyes peeled back.

What have you, then
of these men?

They told us
she was their pink flamingo

plucked up
by a flock of gulls.

*

Michael Tugendhat has a memoir due out in 2012. He’s published poems in elimae; Dear, Sir; and Yes, Poetry, amongst others. He lives and writes in Philadelphia.