#MIDDLEBURY
Who Makes Love to Us After We Die
Diana Marie Delgado
I turn on the radio and hear horses, girls becoming women after tragedy. Talk about dreams! His heart was covered in a thin shell the color of the moon, and when touched, I’d grow old. The best movies have a philosophy, Dorothy, after being subjected to witch-on-girl violence, is rescued. Someone hung himself on that set, a man, who loved, but couldn’t have a certain woman. Management said it was a bird. The best movies begin with an encounter and end with someone setting someone free. In Coppola’s version of Dracula my favorite scene is when the camera chases two women through a garden and watches them kiss. I made love to a man who asked, after many years, for me to choke him, so that later, cleaning a kitchen cabinet, I read a recipe he’d written into wood, and I had a hard time believing him.
About this poem
“This prose poem is part of a series of nonfiction poems that draw upon popular culture and my personal experiences to highlight issues of violence and subjugation toward women.” – Diana Marie Delgado
About Diana Marie Delgado
Diana Marie Delgado is the author of “Late-Night Talks With Men I Think I Trust” (Center for Book Arts, 2015). She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2017 Diana Marie Delgado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
