Amid the pub din, black poodle under the bar, and candle-jeweled ales, I confided the rape to you, a tea and cake type, trilling R's and vintage Hermes knotting your throat. Speaking of violation, I laid out the loss, the ragged hem of my virginity, how, for years, I was split – one body observing the other with cultivated detachment. Later, at dinner, you shamed me, so subtle, almost no one noticed, and I thought of an expression I'd heard, 'Softly catching the monkey.' I remembered how you held glowing glass in your hands, tilted head nodding, eyes stroking me toward this moment. I sat, mesmerized by the silver platter of tomatoes between us, their plumbed innards bare as seeded hearts, sliced so thinly, arranged so carefully.