Tonight's Poet Corner: She Hits Hard, She Hits Well

She Hits Hard, She Hits Well
by Belinda Roddie

Drinking red wine at a tavern landlocked
with a pizzeria, I catch the reflection of
my scratched knuckles against a fragile crystal
stem. Beneath the upper middle class presentation -
the button-down white shirt with clip-on bowtie,
the brown corduroys and semi-new loafers -
I am a whole new level of human cartography.

See on my shoulder the rise of a new continent,
swelling outward, protruding. New land! New
promise! Columbus swivels toward my hematomas
as if regaining a sense of direction. My purpuras
are temporary tattoos of uncharted territories, just
discovered by the fists of someone who drinks
far stronger things in her glass than I do in mine.

I am with six colleagues, all laughing, their faces
tinged with whites and blues from their phones,
the clicks and taps of keys on fingers, keys
in jacket pockets, keys pushed into my brain, deep,
until the dents are sharp enough to fall into. I am not
opposed to this social ennui, but God, do I wish
it could distract me from the foreign world that's formed
across my skin, my character, marking me more
than a permanent pen. I am more map than man,
more violet tectonic shift than bruising flesh,
an earthquake ready to split the ground two
with a less than holy wail.