Domination
by Hannah Loeb
you taught our pitbull
gaia not to bite
a human’s fingers hooked
inside her jaw
in play. play nice you say.
come on, babe.
we both know
the last time i came
you did the same
to me, two fingers
pressing white the gum
behind my teeth and yanking
my head from side to side
as in tug. you slapped me
twice — face, breast —
and like a pitbull
i yanked myself into
a fresh buoyancy, bouncy
hellfire thing to be controlled
by you, dog hair
getting in my mouth
because she sleeps with us
too. the domination
in your nature
looks right in my eyes
and comes
through: a book hits
the floor, my glasses crunch,
& morning light looks blue
Hannah Loeb is an English PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. She earned her BA from Yale in 2012 and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2015. Her poetry has appeared in Booth, The Moth, Ninth Letter, American Chordata, and elsewhere.
Photo by Martin Lopez on Pexels.com.
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