On the Use of Concrete Language by Diane Lockward

[break_the_stars]

On the Use of Concrete Language

Don't say love. Say switchblade.
-Peter Murphy

She remembers the click
and the snap of it
when he opened the blade,
and the black of his
eyes when he flipped it
through his fingers like
some kind of juggler,
and the heat of it,
yes, the heat of it.

She remembers the twinge
sharp as the blade held
to her throat, dragged down
her arm, teasing, circling
the breasts, down her belly,
how it grazed the soft fur
of her skin, and the chill
of the steel, how she shivered.

He put it right to the heart.
He was going to leave
marks, and later, scars.

The first shudder
of flesh and the blade
of his body, the slip
and the slide of it,
he carved inside her,
the words he stuck
in her throat.