After You Go Soft Inside Me by Lexi Pelle

"Bring me your smallness, your tender disappointment."

After You Go Soft Inside Me

by Lexi Pelle

You apologize, like a boy 
on a dock who has just let 
his catch slip back beneath 
the surface of a lake. 
I don’t mind. Bring me 
your smallness, your 
tender disappointment. 
Pajamas around my ankles, 
I smile, wipe my slick thigh 
with your shirt. When I lie 
about reading or doing dishes
when I’m doing nothing,
you catch me the way a dancer 
catches another dancer from 
not-falling. We leave 
the curtains drawn, windows 
open; I hope someone sees 
the tender constellation of 
pimples on my bare ass, 
the way you shrunk like good
fresh vegetables in my oven. 
I never knew how small
we had to reveal ourselves
to be, to be this loved.

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Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Lexi Pelle, in which she discusses living shamelessly as a creative act. About this, she says:

“When I tackle a taboo topic, I’m not trying to be as open and honest as possible; I am trying to let the shadow of the poem, or a deeper truth, impose itself on me. This slight reframe is so permissive. I am not a shameless person, but I am a curious one.”