The Lake
by Lynn McGee
He was a therapist outside Boston.
He was a therapist with fingers thick
as eels. He was a therapist
outside Boston with a belt that cut
into his gut, and a gut that churned
with the girls he had swallowed.
He was a therapist outside Boston
who peeled the layers
from a woman I loved. He peeled
her sweater, her T-shirt,
his hands slick as snails
over tight, tomboy breasts.
Hour up.
Hour up again.
Hour up and years go by,
her hand is in mine,
my hand is in hers—
we’re walking through
the West Village toward literature,
theater, and one day, there he is,
a therapist from outside Boston,
a few rows ahead. My lover
freezes, a rabbit in tall grass,
but I follow him at intermission,
stand quiet as a lake
at the bottom of the stairs: You’re
that therapist from outside Boston.
He looks down at calm water,
my young face, nods and smiles
at the attention.
You’re that therapist outside Boston
who makes his patients
take off their shirts, so he can fondle
their breasts.
His smile snaps
to a straight line. He looks left
and right, rushes back
into the audience,
ushers his wife and child
up the aisle to an exit and looks back
at where I am standing,
the lake grown deep and ruffled
with wind.
Lynn McGee
Lynn McGee is the author of the poetry collection Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016) and two award-winning chapbooks: Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press,1996). Her work appears in the Fall 2017 Potomac Review and recently, in the The American Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review and Storyscape. Lynn's full-length collection Tracks is forthcoming from Broadstone Books. Lynn lives in the Bronx and rides her bike whenever possible.