by Rachyl Nyoka
Housewife
-Mass Shootings Have Roots In Domestic Violence – NPR
She makes the bed.
She feeds the baby.
She mops the floor.
She puts on makeup
over the blossoming
bruise on her cheek,
a kiss planted there by
her husband’s fist.
She tries not to think
about the look on his
face when he hits her–
the same expression as
in the photograph he
made her take of him
holding his rifle up.
She tries not to think
of the rifle in the garage.
She wonders what she
should make for dinner.
She wonders what time
he will be home. She
wonders when she will
finally wake up from the
so-called American dream.
V.C. Myers is the author of Ophelia (Femme Salvé Books, 2023) and Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019). She has been an editor and reader for Sarabande Books, Barren Magazine, Ice Floe Press, and Frontier Poetry. Her work appears in journals such as EPOCH, Poet Lore, and Feral.
Rachyl Nyoka (she/her) is a biracial Black poet, visual artist, and psychotherapist from San Diego, California. Rachyl uses expressive arts and the creative process both within her therapeutic work and as an exploration of the subconscious, liminality/voidspace, and archetypal symbolism. Her visual work has appeared in The Hopper Magazine. Rachyl currently lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, son, and three cheeky felines. She can be found at www.rachylnyoka.art and @stingraee on Cara as well as www.clovepsychotherapy.com.