……….The difference in meaning between the English words brush and brute
……….is the exchange of fugitive for violence. When the train was pushed by another
……….train, it was shocked, then pleased by the pressure of intimacy. Nothing fast or
……….too bubbly, or a toast tossed into the back of the throat, intended to jump the
……….tracks and make the angle of every direct glance pleasingly askew. The brute on
……….the train rolls down the embankment and becomes the brush in which its fugitive
……….self hides out. Born fraternal twins—different only in the color of their eyes and
……….the -‐‑sh and -‐‑te at the tips of their toes—they could depend on one another for
……….attack or defense. Dressed exactly the same, from hats appropriate to the weather
……….to the belt that holds up their pants—one pair stitched of sackcloth, the other of
……….silk. Wedded for life by switchings and desire, the adoring, suspicious eye,
……….and lazy hours in the company of inseparable selves.
A former member of the editorial board of Global City Review, Paula Marafino Bernett was awarded the Resident Writer’s Award from the 2009 Taos Summer Writer’s Conference sponsored by UNM, and was one of three first-prize winners in WordHustler’s 2009 Summer Poetry Contest. She is also the winner of St. John’s College 2011 Essay Prize, and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anemone Sidecar, California Quarterly (CQ), Caveat Lector, The Chaffin Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, Eclectica Magazine, Eclipse, The Hiss Quarterly, Rattle, Salamander, Sierra Nevada College Review, and Tar River Poetry and others.