Ari B. Cofer

 
If you Don’t Leave Me, You Really Don’t Love Me

i know this because i leave the door unlocked when i leave for work

and pray it will still be unlocked when i return.

imagine causing irreparable harm to your beloved because you cannot be trusted

to be alone in the kitchen when the knives are clean.

imagine sharing a crab leg in the august heat with the man who is considering divorcing you.

imagine you are a child, so young you cannot speak, the first time someone leaves

because they say they love you. imagine it’s your mother or your father. Imagine

they tell you this will all make sense when you are old enough

to love me, i need to see your hand on the exit door.

i need to hear you explain how hard it will be

to walk away. to love is to never stop

wanting. so, please, if you want to go, never tell me when

you’re coming back

I Am Finally Loving Sex Again when I Remember the Assault

the grief of my body paddles me
scarlet. chokes me like a moan.

when i am handled in palmfuls i escape my skin
to be easier to hold. it’s not fair i am stuck

on the outside of me while my lover gets all
of the insides. i ask God, while i’m face-down,

why He re-floods the memories
of all my little deaths

just as i am finally safe to come
back into my body.

i look so alive
in the tangle of bedsheets.

there are no cramped desires and no
avoided eye contact, not counting the self-

missionary efforts to stop myself
from counting the ceiling fan blades.

how many times will i go in circles until i can feel
uninterrupted warmth again?

i will get on my knees just to remember
the feeling of a bruise.

Ari B. Cofer is a Black and queer author who holds BA in Professional Writing from Baylor University and an MFA from Randolph College. She has published two books through Central Avenue Publishing: paper girl and the knives that made her (Jan 2022), which was featured on Buzzfeed books in 2022; and unfold: poetry and prose (2023).  website

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