________________________It’s a question I don’t ask,
________________________________a punchline to the ribs.

Of course, people
have made it through worse.
________________________Consider, for a moment,
________________________the dead who won’t ever be found.

______________________________________I could say
______________________________________I will make it because
______________________________________________the rape was worse, and
______________________________________________lasted much longer than forty days.

________________________I could say
________________________I will make it because
________________________________my mom won’t forgive me
________________________________if I don’t.

______________________________________________I could say any number of things here.

The apartment is clean.
Excessively.
________________________________All this tinkering, this futile
______________________________________machine building
________________________________of words misaligned and realigned
________________________________serves only as a distraction,
________________________and the rape
________________________in the poem is just a
passing detail
____in this vacant cathedral, though somehow,
the memory is worse for it.

________________________I notice the record playing in the living room
________________________skips certain words
________________________________and casts the ballad in new light:

a love song with the words
__________________________________“I love” redacted.