GENEVIEVE HARTMAN
cw – atlanta spa shooting, implied gun violence
somewhere in georgia it is hot
air heavy as a man enters a spa.
he enters like he owns the place,
but in fact is an Asian woman who
owns it, who spends long hours
touching people she’d rather not touch.
it is hot, & he berates himself
for being there, prays to a cruel god
that made his lust & now
wants him to pretend it isn’t there,
the same god, maybe, that the Asian woman prays to
each night for strength, for less
arthritic hands, less carpal tunnel.
they look at each other: the woman,
the man, pause for a second
before she leads him
around the corner, through the door
where she or some other woman
who looks like her
will do their job.
he will not leave a tip
when it is over, only the residue of
hatred for himself, for the women,
with their hands that degrade him,
which actually he degrades,
their foreignness an itch to scratch,
a somehow easier pill to choke down.
he will leave, & come back later & later,
& each woman will be the same to him.
he will not notice that they are called
by different names, so caught is he
in the loathing, burning mass of rage,
taut in his chest, taught
to him his whole life as a kind of love.
his white god will peer down
from behind the sun, well pleased.
& somewhere, someday in georgia,
it will be an overcast march afternoon.
the cool air tinged with rain is not
cool enough to ease the hot
anger that leads him to a gun shop,
where his ever-present shame
whispers some poisoned sweetness
only he can hear.
Genevieve Hartman is a Korean American poet based in upstate New York. She is the Director of Development & Publicity at BOA Editions, reads poetry for VIDA Review, and reviews for GASHER. Her writing has been published in Stone Canoe, EcoTheo, Singapore Unbound, River Mouth Review, and others; follow her on Instagram at @gena_hartman.