Julia Knobloch: #MeToo Series
MEMPHIS
When the ducks marched out of the elevator,
we were on our second martini.
I don’t like hard liquor,
but made many exceptions then.
Like two hours earlier, when I let water
into the tub in our room at the luxury hotel,
charged, as usual, to my card,
and he felt the sudden need to take me from behind,
a newly-weds’ pleasure I couldn’t relate to, but tried.
Oh, my body was way too large
to cause him lasting excitement, anyway,
so for better excitement, he punched my face.
When the ducks marched out of the elevator,
in the crowd of tourists, a baby cried.
How old is he, I asked the mother.
Six months, she said,
and to my husband’s stern face
I quacked, that’s the age of our marriage,
like this boy, we will outgrow the first-year-woes.
Instead of saying, Get the fuck away from me,
crazy sex addict, money sucker, cheater –
I didn’t know he was already then saving up
for his new life with a colleague,
whose body offered so much excitement,
he didn’t have to hit her.
His mother knew I would not return
to their gated community,
that explains the way she dismissed me,
when we set out on our road trip back to New York,
when the sister stood behind the screen door,
a blind cat on her arms.
I, the mean bitch, who prevented
their son’s and brother’s happiness.
My mother, in turn, asked,
You don’t look good in this picture,
out of shape, puffy, forced smile
at the Mississippi Bridge. What’s going on?
Mom, on Beale Street, I forced pancakes down my aching throat.
In the hoteI room, I let him shove his penis between my lips.
In the bath tub, I squeezed a rubber duck and sang songs from Sesame Street.
Julia Knobloch is a journalist and translator turned project manager and executive assistant. Before moving to New York from Berlin, she worked 10+ years as a writer and producer for TV documentaries and radio features. Her essays and reportages have been published in print and online publications in Germany, Argentina, and the US (openDemocracy, Brooklyn Rail, Reality Sandwich). She occasionally blogs for ReformJudaism.org, and she recently was awarded the Poem of the Year prize from Brooklyn Poets for her poem Daylight Saving Time. Julia lives in Sunset Park.
