Poem by Deanie Vallone

He’s a dog’s gnarled tooth and I’m the hand
that fed him. I knew this dog bit when I took
him in, but why do we always feed the mouth

that turns on us? I scratch that query into
the inside cover of my Bible and down the last
of last month’s open cabernet. The air

is ripe with someone else’s fruit; it’s acid
on my skin. I try conjuring what this other
woman looks like—apple blonde, collarbones

like a crucifixion. She knows how to snap
a leash. I bite the edge of my glass and wonder
if that’s what it’s like when their teeth touch.

He leaves plum-mouthed Os on her
skin like wine stains on rice-thin pages.
I can only imagine the shades it fades to

over time. I fill myself with tannins and the
Pentateuch, wonder where it all went wrong.
At night in bed I make out with my closed

fist, bite my knuckle until it bleeds. It
tastes like young money, like fury, like her
laugh, like something other than myself.