Nerve blanches into your back
after you walk into this room
and decide to stay— rarely before.
The arch in its ceiling won’t
like the look of your stockings
hanging over their mirror,
nor the black marks your heels
rip into the floor.
The reason you can stay
is you know how to scrub
away each tea stain ringing the cups,
and the gray caked onto the window panes,
pulsed in from the rain,
and only tear down the curtains
to null the sound from puddling
out from under the door.
Straps won’t cut into shoulders
here; they’ll slip, and hair won’t
hang away from eyes or rest
behind ears. But here,
there’s a skin that will sit
straight on your bones—
so long as you put the words
to tape before the ink dries.
-lh (01.22.21)
Lindsay Hutton 