[TW for sexual coercion]

Some things a woman just knows.

Other things she needs to be taught
like the proper place settings
for her organs
during marital intimacies.

Feet shove mine apart.
One rough hand on my back teaches down
while another tugs at my shoulder. Up.
Wordless pedagogy in proper back arcage.

I hear his grimace behind me.
I am an improvement over the inanimate
only if I can be relied upon now to hold
just so.

The internal topography of my body is land
to be conquered
and broken of its defiance.