B46
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: with Abandon

in the middle of a train station

a young woman yelled for half a second
(like an exaggerated whimper)
and fell smack! on her face
and i thought she was just some nut
until i saw the blood start heavy pouring from her forehead
and the tile become drunk on her
and the crowd gather
as she jolted and bumped.

we all stood at the edge of a circle
whose diameter we had unspeakingly defined.
You were overwhelmed with something i wasn’t
so You ran to her and lifted her head,
holding her on her side
to keep her from drowning in that hearty puddle and
to keep her tongue from falling down her throat
as i stood there looking
at her and then looking away.

You took off Your hat
(seemingly reverent)
and used it to push the blood into a neat pile,
(somehow maternal)
soaking it up in the cotton
but when that wasn’t enough,
when Your hat overflowed,
You took off Your sweater and died it pink with her.
as the girl’s face went bluish
and fellow strangers asked each other
who was she with, and does anybody know her,
You held the blood in her face with Your sweater.

i looked at her hands,
two of her fake nails had broken off in the fall
and her thumb was bouncing arrhythmically.
i wondered if it was a code she knew.
what was she saying?
what would i say?
probably “i’m fine, this is so embarrassing, i’ll be fine.”

she convulsed and made a noise like strangling,
her forehead was swollen and her eyes just sloshing around
until they fixed on mine and she stared at me
like i was the ghost instead of her

softly You handed her head to a stranger and stood up;
Your clothes and hands overflowing with a stranger's rust.
You didn’t speak for most of the three hours,
i asked what’s wrong and You said nothing, really, it’s nothing.

i wondered if she was dead;
she sure looked like she was going to die,
with her eyes torn opened and her face off-white,
stained and streaked by the blood it lacked

You’re shivering, i said,
get a jacket from your suitcase;
You’re freezing.

but You just stared out of the window
at the graffiti running by
wondering if You had just saved her life or held her to death.

Frida Bilson