Tender

1 Minute Read Time

This photograph shows a doll with an arm patch, presumably with it's arm broken, sitting on a ledge with a gray background. — Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash

I think about the word: TENDER 
And its meanings
He told me I was so tender. 
Tender meaning easily to bruise? 
Meaning soft to the touch?
Meaning perfection to taste? 
Meaning juicy,
Or close to bloody. 
Tender . . .
Did he mean tinder?
Like when I saw him on Tinder
Like when I saw someone who might’ve been posing as him on 
      Tinder?
Or like what starts a fire? 
The way the wood balks
The way it bleeds blue into orange into yellow 
(Orange you glad I never called you out about that?) 
Doesn’t the wood grow warm and gentle, soft-like? 
(One might say, tender.)
Was he saying I was quick to burn? 
(Maybe he was quick to burn)
Maybe I am quick to burn 
(So what?)
Tender feels so loving
All those “en” sounds like: envelope, endearment, endeavor 
encircle, enclose, enchant, entwine, enthrall, engage,
end, end, end, end, end

Leah Umansky

is the author of the forthcoming memoir DELICATE MACHINE, (Dzanc Books, 2027) OF TYRANT, (Word Works Books 2024) and the upcoming collection, ORDINARY SPLENDOR (Etruscan Press, 2028). She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her creative work has been featured on PBS and The Slowdown, and in such places as The Nation, The New York Times, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, USA Today, POETRY, and American Poetry Review.

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