Other women don't tell you Poem by julia kolchinsky dasbach

it will always be your fault:
his nose running
after that first dip
in the Atlantic,
his bruised elbow
and scraped knee,
his hair, too long,
always in his face
and his face, too much
or too little of yours,
his hard hands
slapping the animals,
unclear, misshapen
words, loud and large enough
to fill any public space
with unintelligible language,
and then that birthmark,
high up on his glute,
that one's especially
your fault, from when
you were so scared
you grabbed
onto your belly—fear
seeps through the fingertips,
your mother said, down
into thick, pregnant flesh,
down through fluid
and layers of your body
protecting his, down
onto unknowing skin—
marking him afraid,
the history he comes from,
in perpetual, dark bloom