Valentines: “Here, I am a Rabbit-Hearted Girl,” “Fawn,” by Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador
Here, I am a Rabbit-Hearted Girl
racing to the pine tree that stands
in your childhood backyard. Clavicular,
brightened pink, a beauty. Some mornings,
your hands are whittled chalices that cup cold water
to sate my thirst. Others, they are the loop of a wired
snare, trained to tighten. Still, I climb to the nest you make
with your palms, eat chokeberries from your fingertips
even though their name scares me, be all-trusting,
neck deep in the water. Because what kind of man
loves like this? Tenderly, scarily, fully. You believe
your hands were molded to fit me, your mouth, to sing
I love you to me. Three times, always. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Say it fast enough and it becomes I leave you. I love you, I love you,
I’ll leave you. Your cadence, a pine scale wedged between your grip
and my pulse. So, let us both recognize the trap: there will come a time
when you leave me and the winged seeds of this tree will still blossom.
My heart will sprint like a rabbit, and you will be the one caught
in the snare you hold open, the wire biting your own hand.
But for tonight, stay under this tree with me, let me
kiss the wounds already forming on your palms.
1. The phrases “Here, I am a Rabbit-Hearted Girl” and “What kind of man loves like this” reference Florence + The Machine’s songs “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” and “What Kind of Man.”
Fawn
I, too, have swallowed the sun on my wrist
and poured salt over a soft heart. That night
in October, you take me to the creek where
you first learned of affliction, flesh, slaughter,
what doe eyes can do to men. A fawn rests
by the water and before it runs at the sight
of you and I, you say you have hunted deer before,
have skinned them, and eaten their weak meat.
I am not scared of your hunger, though. I, too,
know of choosing cruelty over light. The fawn
sprints into the woods and although I cannot
speak of innocence, I can tell you of my own
longing. This, I deserve. The weight of
your tongue still covered in blood against
my mouth, a thick layer of black honey spit,
plum-colored, dripping down my breastbone.
This, I want. I look up at you and you tell me
my eyes are the same color as the fawn’s. I, too,
know how to ask for your mercy. These hands
that you hold are mine. We walk back home,
my neck still smelling of prey. I swallow silently,
my mouth, sacred. I, too, can turn blood into devotion.
How easy is it to love you despite this violence,
to hold your arm steady while you kill.
About Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador
Born and raised in México, Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador is a poet, educator, and translator. She is a McCormack Writing Center Reading Fellow and is working on her first poetry collection. Learn more about her writing on sandradolores.com.