Nervous Habit

A lover’s touch sinks under his skin: tender

comfort like cotton or gin cuts deep

to the bone. Full-throttle metronome

as his fingers scrape at his scalp.

Talk makes it sound bad, or unclean,

but it is not. 

          Light, white snow

awakes his eyes to what disguises

this hideout for the dead.

So quickly it sheds, the dry flakes

stick to his nails. Now red life

sloughs away the dead skin.

Blood creeps under the nails, stains the quick

fix a shade of abuse. What’s the use

of plowing the parched terrain

if hands keep cracking open a body—

Benay wrote these poems while she was a senior at Georgetown University.