Oh, people. Oh, men!
Let me shake your oval hands.
Your egg-shaped grips, frictionless tips
swallow my own the way
snakes do.
Consonants!
&
UPPERCASE!
shouts inside a mouth clamped shut
HARD!
like iron-enriched shit
SHARP!
like stickers in tall grass
But
their egg-shaped hands are also flat.
With every stupid attempt made
to present my odd water,
their palms redden slapping it and I
wonder where You are.
You, who sucks at telling jokes.
You, who forgets his own work.
You are soft and rounded vowel sounds, love
everything about you feels like wooden bowls
autumnly stained.
It doesn't matter much -
the love or lack of it.
The sun decides, every day, to sleep in,
and in the night/abrupt/aborted morning,
I think of you standing over its bed
with something like sadness
and a knife in your hand.
It doesn't matter much -
but maybe it does.
When love speaks, I feel pictures.
When love speaks, I hear colors.
When love speaks, I taste textures.
When you speak, I check under
the Box
(for an expiration
date)
And say what you will about the milking of feelings,
but after all these years, your words have not curdled,
and there are few things that matter more to me
than that.
I never feel more like a middle child
than when I read love poems
about girls
with long dark hair
boys with poison darts inside the
wilderness of their
tongues
children who exist from start to finish
children who remember the flavor of cake
children who don't understand how Jesus
could forget a perfect thing like
growing up
I feel caught in between
my natures.
The writer in me wants to read every poem
and underline each hidden Mickey.
The girl in me wants to read the same poems
but she cries when they're not about
her.
Loving you here is safest.
And by here, I mean HERE
where the words cast themselves
like stinkbait
for lonely
bologna
catfish
and we swarm so earnestly,
never seeing the others
only seeing each other
and that is stupid
and safe
and expected
here.
Loving you there is hard.
And by there, I mean everywhere not HERE.
There, where I remark the softness of your face.
The niceness of your eyelashes
and the queer uselessness of having them.
Where your football-shaped head makes me want to tuck it
under my arm and run with the other arm
stiff
out.
But There is a bear trap
clamped on the dick of mankind.
And for all the s(t)inkholes
and perils of
loving strangers
nobody actually hurts themselves
Here.
Useless superpower #1 -
I can usually spot the funny
in most anything.
I begged my best friend to hold on, tonight.
I spread my arms out like the Jesus
he only 3/4 believes in
and wanted to die
in his place.
But I didn't.
And neither did he.
Nothing is guaranteed.
And there's nothing funny about that.
But.
In a macabre way
it is fucking hilarious
to be unafraid of Death,
but moreso,
the fast galloping horse he rides in on.
From across the lawn, I see a mother and children
two...three....four of em,
and they are throwing rocks in the water
and she is smiling so hard
I can feel her warmth from inside
the building.
Life is simple, I think,
watching the oldest help the youngest
get a good handful
and throw at the top of the arch
for better distance.
Life is so goddamned simple, I remark,
as the mother digs in her bag
and produces crackers and juice
for the lot of them.
The children sit around her,
still smiling,
eat their crackers,
drink their juice.
And I wonder where their father must be.
At work, maybe.
In whatsherfuck's office.
Rubbing his temples as she serves him
black coffee.
Uncrosses her legs.
His wife is so distant.
So cold to his
stupid man
needs.
The little ones climb in the water now.
I'll have to drag myself out there
and kindly ask them to come out.
I grit my teeth for their father,
who may be dead for all I know.
All I know is that he complicates
everything.
I have a habit of staring at people's mouths when they talk.
It's not that I'm uninterested in what they have to say,
it's just
most people don't know that the mouth and hands
are linked.
I'm more interested
in the puppetry.
"It's when something is supposed to be funny, but isn't"
Her mouth is fit for nuclear codes.
Accordingly, her hands move
very little.
Her face reminds me of waking up.
That very first moment, before your eyes adjust
and everything is warm,
emotionless,
and beautiful.
She tells me of her situation
and I feel happy to be un-in love.
I tell her that I've decided that I
don't love
nobody.
I say I ain't cooin' for Not
nobody Not
no more
and I Swear I Don't
feel
Nothin'.
And she doesn't have to say it.
I can see it in the way
the corners of her mouth
tug at the politeness
of her fingers.
So I'll say it for her -
Love is most definitely a joke,
I'm just not sure which parts I'm supposed to
not laugh at anymore.
Observe the broadness of my shoulders.
My tusks - sturdy
samurai swords.
Observe the thickness of my skin.
The weight of this state
panting hot,
never glad,
wanting more.
May we not forget my largeness.
Forgetting's not a thing
I do.
When I picture you are hurting,
I picture wild, sharp toothed things.
You are something like my son
in that I picture you
too soft.
Too small to see over cluttered
countertops.
And I plant my feet n'
lower my head.
I square my tusks
and trumpet my trunk that
whatever believes it will stand in the after
has obviously never seen what I do to
young bulls.
I understand all-too-well
what possesses you.
And though I don't believe you're Satan
I wish to God you'd get
behind me.
My son, sturdy barrel boy,
raises the ladder on his plastic
firetruck
and snaps the thing
clean off.
He sits for a moment.
Confused by his power.
Confused by new futures.
Confused by the fact that the ladder did not scream.
It gave no warning.
It was fine until it
wasn't.
It was fine until it
snapped.
My son, trembling boulder,
cries a cry so goddamn sorry
that it breaks my heart,
every heart I ever had,
going back
several years
before his cry was even
born.
I reach for him.
He reaches back.
With a burning left shoulder
I hold him in my arms.
He buries his chin in the shoulder that suddenly
feels an awful lot like that plastic
ladder.
I hold him because I love him.
My shoulder burns, and I love him.
He digs his chin and it hurts
somethin' terrible.
But I hold him tighter
and remind him
I am magic.
Like my mother is.
Like her mother was.
His sadness melts into a sleepy soup.
I lay him down and kiss his forehead goodnight.
He curls his body against mine.
His breathing is deep. Calm. Even.
And I wish this power worked on everyone.
I've never tried.
Hell.
It might.
We watched New York's fireworks on TV.
My son, closest thing to what I imagine
pyrotechnicians envision in their
sleep,
allowed himself to love once more
a thing that would not attend
his birthday.
"Woooowwww"
"So so pretty!"
"Here comes another one!"
Across town, his father sends emojis.
Tears and frowny faces for those of us surviving;
brokenhearted illustrations for us enduring his
Pretend Death.
Takes a bite of mustard muffin.
Takes a swig of piss-warm beer.
Says he's sorry for the way things have to be.
And that's a mighty fine sentiment
for a pretend dead man to have.
As the finale begins, I wonder if sweetie
has made any connections between the fireworks
and the flowers I routinely bring home,
the flowers he observes long enough to state color
then smashes with such intensity
that the flurry of screaming petals look like
TV with poor reception.
I tell myself to write about it later.
Everyone is writing poetry tonight.
I feel combustible and pretty
and I only want to die
(a) little.
Broken sex notwithstanding,
I covet your nearness, reader.
I confide in nobody else but you
because you wear many faces
and each face mirrors my own.
In another life, we could have danced
under Monet's weeping willows/
skipped rocks over ponds,
stirred the sleep of water lilies.
In another time, you may have moved
your studio beside mine.
We may have criticized each other's work,
fought nurses for limiting visitations to
immediate families
only.
In another life, I could have looked you in the eyes
and mouthed the words
(I)
and
(love)
and
(you)
and you could have kissed me for all the inside jokes
we'd share on our misavettsures.
Lap steels remind me of feelings.
Fluid and pulling.
Your voice reminds me of water
cutting canyons in the East.
Or sometimes pinching clay,
not the look but the feel of it.
Yellow. I don't know why.
Sometimes tan.
Sometimes I see words
generally understood to mean
"middle".
It could also remind me of a belt
swinging in a menacing breeze.
Or sometimes a thing that fits in my hands
that I bring to my eyes
and understand.
Your face is like something
given apprehensively for
safe keeping.
I watch nuclear events from start to finish
in your eyes.
And there is suffering unlike anything I've ever known.
And still.
I risk rotting limbs
to be near you.
It is a feather falling,
yellows and purples alongside deep bluey hues,
the coolness of dark hardwood floors,
the static of silence amplified by
expectations.
It is a thing that weaves,
a cursive word,
continuous,
it is a drink I lack the heart to pour
out.
It is here and it is now,
love's last words
fading
from my ears.
It is an obligation to perform CPR.
A declaration with no belief in itself.
I dedicate entire days to loving you.
From a distance, without sound,
while your heart does what your heart must
to protect itself from
words like these.
And it's not a needy love, in fact,
if you never spoke to me again,
if you never read another word,
this love would get along just fine
declaring itself
again and again.
I love you.
God,
how I love you.
And it's not terminal but I'll die
doing it.
'n if there's a way to do it after
then I'd like to do that
too.
In another life,
Robert and I might have worked.
'n by 'worked', I mean we might have gotten drunk
and written down all the things that hurt
us,
then blown them to, say,
smithereens
before making love
intimately aware
that measurable time is
just for fun,
made-up as the scar I'm imagining on his
chest.
In another life, we might have been
scientists/psychologists/
well-dressed not-quite-nihilists
prepared for curtain
drop.
But here, in this life, I listen to
every word he has to say.
And it's interesting, you know.
That a guy like him,
so at home in his cosmic
homelessness, is
married.
That a guy who does not think
but Knows,
that every vessel, no matter the size,
is sinking
sinking
sinking
still finds love
worth having and
worthwhile.
He knows better than
Anyone
that if there is a God
He's long moved on
and forgotten all about
this rock
yet still,
he sees something else
when he looks at his wife.
Something beautiful
circling the same drain.
It's a pleasing thing to watch him swoon.
I still have much to learn.
Often,
I come back to Robert's
black holes.
He showed me once
and it's worked well ever
since
see,
I get to thinkin' about my son
and how much he likes to wrestle.
I get to thinkin' about how old I feel
and how useless fat is
if it won't absorb elbows.
I get to thinkin' about my Womanly Shelf Life
and I start grittin' my teeth at the fact that
ex-husband doesn't have one.
And the solution seems simple -
lose the weight and smile more.
But Robert's thing is simpler -
the only thing in this goddamned universe
that takes light with it when it goes
is supermassive
and vacuous
and could not, even through the blurriest lens,
resemble anything as useless
as men.
Besides,
I'm way past needin' to be consumed.
My son's elbows are gettin' larger
and gettin' hot's a bother.
A face fresh from crying
feels the way wet cardboard
smells.
It feels like stretched plastic.
It feels like
broken spines -
the impolite way my sister holds what she is
reading?
Peeled back like a blouse
too small for the head inside it.
It feels like
the pantomime
one might make to part the
sea.
Now that I've explained
this left-right smear upon my face,
feel free to tell me I'm
beautiful
or whatever it is
you men think you
ought to
think.
They're like dogs, I say
No really, I mean
They're like teething puppies
and we are the fingers
tickling their coffee
chops
that careful chew
that nothing nibble
letting you know it's all in good
fun
and no one can explain it;
no one spots the change
but at some point they forget you and they start using their
back teeth.
And he nods and sips and shakes his head
and I imagine
a nervous circus of fleas
dancing on his
ears.
Loving you is a birthday party
that everyone drops everything to come to.
Loving you is a star-studded cast
with all my favorite faces
saying all my favorite things.
Loving you is a snow day in August
in Texas
on Monday
(when I'm especially hung-
over)
Loving you is that dream I have
where I'm skinny and pretty and fucking
Mark Wahlberg.
And I never wake up.
And it never stops snowing.
And you are kind enough to rewind yourself
at the start of every
party.
I sit here at a grand piano,
borrowed and blue,
shapely like sunglasses
I listen to a melody
once,
twice,
got it now
I see the shape and apply it to
a guitar that I'm not even holding
and I know it
now
I know it
and
I finish there to tell you here
that I have it now;
I'm a quick study
and now I'm here
shapely and quick
and all I can really think about
is the fact that he left us
anyway.
you do not hold me,
buzzard boy
you do not hold me any
more
your arms are hyperlapsed headlights
on a rural two-lane road
don't look like much, but when sped up?
you dance, vulture
you dance!
you do not hold me,
devil bird
you bastard wolf in bastard sheep's
clothing
and you're afraid, you say,
afraid that you've
become something even
You
hate
but I see you, crow,
on your little pedestal
fearlessly spinning
paper
plates.
I flick the loops in cursive 'love'
with the smooth part of my
sunburned tongue
love comes too soon,
slyly remarks "a shudder in the hand is worth
two shivers in the
bush"
and I cannot stand the sight of it
so pleased with half-circle (e)
motions
when it sleeps in that dumb
curled cat way,
I roll out of bed and bathe myself
in dull refrigerator
light.
it is nearly midnight
there are rubber fingers in my ears
and I am reminded, sweetly, of a love
that I'm no longer
in
but oh
when I was in it!
the expressed bag of mother
cows
the inner ears of newborn
pigs
pinched elbow skin
relaxed and
warm
such was our hidden
softness
when the good most got the knuckles, wander-
-love, you got the palm
open
cupped
&
gathering
everything, love
everything.
it is after midnight now.
you are somewhere far
in the pantie drawer
of a nothing city
in a nowhere state
and that's not much different from how it was, except
these days, I think
you like it
there.
This polar vortex is killing them
up North, but here
it's almost warm
it doesn't do much good since I'm
too fat to skip the jacket, but
I imagine you,
great toothed thing,
nestled inside your
steely dam
a beast within a motherfucker
here and there
(not Here, but
There)
and outside the wind whips
violently
it stirs until the air fluffs up
and casts white peaks off
winter whisks
you are There with Eyes Alive, love!
and I am Here
with windows down
wishing I had some clothes that
fit.
If you want to know the truth, you giant
finger wagging
(adverb here)
these gross affairs mean nothing to me;
they could shrivel up inside themselves
and it wouldn't even hurt to
sit
the Truth is that I miss the joy
of waiting for the buzz of love
or chime or ring or
traded drink
that Out Loud love, that homo stuff
that Visible from Space shit
love
and this heart that I insist on keeping
pumping blood and taking
beatings
it misses it so goddamned bad
and shuts its eyes so tight, I think
it'll be real quick to forget
all this sex shit
when love comes back.
Heaving hot and insecure
I stitch the letter to my neck
and ask the man, dumb runaway,
to please work around it.
He is thinner than the towel used
to wipe away our grief.
"may as well" and "we might die"
expel in thick white
sheets
It is -
useless
useless
useless
I feel -
stupid
stupid
stupid
Don't I value -
what? love?
is that what drives these goddamned dogs
to rage against their
Tungsten cones?
It's not all them.
A man once fed my child mouth
with food from his
hand
and ever since, I guess I just
prefer the under
table.
He kisses like it's
personal, like
some girl back in
middle school
should Really see
how far he's Come,
like all those times
he slept alone
too bored to let his hands slide down,
it's something he can Laugh At
now.
His forward movement
looks like movies,
sounds like mice on
Mouse Prom Night,
he kisses hard and without lips, I think
'why wait someday to laugh at This?'
I think I'll laugh
right now.
"Are you really needy?" the chatbox chirps
he is 39 and "so done with the bullshit"
wants to know my 30 year old views on
polyamory and
marijuana.
He has a cornucopic face with a cotton
candy brain, but
I cradle his question in my mouth
and look him straight in the eyes,
I've never considered myself
needy/needing/
having things that resemble
Needs
but,
in broad daylight, my feelings turn
often
always
ever only
toward the heart of an about-half man
and the distance gets his better half
(the soft middle scoop
not the hardened sides)
and I get, I'm told,
the other half
the about-half of that moment when
Bradley Cooper hangs
himself
And I think Surely that's a bit
dramatic, SURELY
we could make this
work
then I realize 39 unmatched me
somewhere in all of that
but it's just as well,
I'm too old for weed
and I'm incredibly fucking
needy.
Blair, the landscape painter,
the spinning dryer we all agree we'd
take a ride on
stands up straight and speaks four
simple words
Inspiration
Is For
Amateurs
You gotta get up each day and just
Do It, he frowns
I'm a good listener; I know what he means.
He MEANS that his wife, the one he never talks about,
the one who told him his paintings weren't paying
the bills,
he MEANS that she and he
share a passion for
unasking
deathparting
professionalism.
I have been asked to respect the privacy of the
dying, respect
the dumb wishes of the already
dead
so I'll do you one better, you
gasoline carcass
you sea-drinking, soup-stealing
all-loathing
stiff
you liar, you LIAR
you glassy-eyed bozo, you
insult to every glad
lad on the street
I'll not write another damn word
about you.
I'll snuff out your surname
from the County Clerk's
book.
And the words already written?
Words like wanting and loving and
having and holding and
dreaming and feeling your body
press down?
With respect to your corpse, sir,
I may as well tell you,
that they were never about You
anyhow.
I missed you
by
twenty minutes
today
and for twelve years before
that.
I am occasionally sobered
by the beauty of
men.
So often, I'm drunk with
hating their guts but
these leavened reminders
keep me puffy at
heart.
Oh rising shoulders!
Oh kneading palms!
You are shaped like a thing that dispenses
cracked pepper.
Your heart is a tire
swinging free in your
chest.
Thumb and forefinger roll
Beads Off the
necklace.
Soft flex of forearm grinds
bones into
bread.
Why don't I ever write about my son?
Is it that I suck at writing
happy things
in the way you mopes
prefer?
These plain words never do it
for you...
Happy. Silly. Smart.
Handsome. Loving. Growing.
Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
Maybe.
I thinks it's more you're
all so steeped in
loathing, you're
all so drunk with
wanting, and
by you, I mean we, I guess
I never much agreed with bringing
kids into the bar.
I don't know why, exactly
could be the exhaustion
mixed with clear stuff,
the layer of gasoline
floating atop my son's
stolen (borrowed)
grape juice
could be the percussive beating
my ears have taken
the feedback shriek
chattering my tee
th
could be the fact that this makes
number five fo(u)r
you
but
the idea of cutting off
a perfectly good
ear
for something as
common
as
nothing
as
love
you may as well chain yourself
to roaches; you May as well
die for
men's rights
Husband,
I want to forget about
space
expanding
ever-wide
and without
end
about the fact that we are
pocket lint
in a universe dressed
for the
arcade
about the shape with which all things,
ALL things,
may or may not
identify
about the center
ever reaching
never touching
only seeing
to it that we never
get there
Love,
I'd much rather occupy myself
with the science of your
perfect lips.
The way that they
articulate
whatever silly, sudden
thing
the way they make up for
lost time, the way
they too
expand
around the doubt
black holes, you might
could call them, those
times I get to thinking we
are the sum of our
coalescing
parts
I'd like to Stop thinking about
life
and time
and the fact that light
bends
but rarely seems to
break
I'd much rather prove
that bending light
is only half as great
as biting
lip.
Are you bored yet of my
gnawing
longing?
My blushed exhale of
hungry
hot air?
I forget that it's there,
peeling back my smooth wood finish.
Not until I scrape my belly
waiting for the next big thing
do I remember that I've been waiting
an awfully
long time.
And for what, I've never known.
It is my mother's way
of cooking.
I try and I get close
but it's always missing
something.
I'll meet you halfway, Square Tooth.
I am crawling under
white wine spheres
and slapping my belly
purposefully
to a song I hadn't heard in
years.
There is nothing special about attraction, kid.
It merely adds an
unplugged smile
to the beat
the beat
the beat...
I'm not saying that you ought to feel PROUD,
Square Tooth...
I'm just saying
that I've been writing
poetry
since I was
six.
And in twenty
four years,
I've only written
multiple poems
about 4 other
guys.
So.
This being your fourth and all.
Maybe
stand up a little
straighter.
Somebody mentioned that I might miss
the closeness.
Warmth. Touch. Intimacy.
Everything I couldn't wait to skip past
as I drew up plays to advance
the runners.
I've never been very sentimental, see.
So the idea that I might simply be missing
earlobes,
necks,
noses.
Fuck.
It irks me, man.
Like spoken confessions
when kisses will do.
Just before I sat down to write this,
I brought myself to orgasm
four times.
And I called out the name of a man
I haven't wanted
in a very long time.
He was an okay lay and all.
Liked to watch and listen.
Mostly listen.
And those fuckin' eyes, I tell you.
Like pearly pleas inside a rosewood
cabinet.
Writing this now,
with the trail of empty satisfaction
glossing the right half of my
keyboard.
I don't know.
Maybe I should call him.
I've never understood my knack
for attracting beautiful women.
What compelling force,
what pressing
Need
drives them to want to harness me.
I mean,
I can see how they'd think
they thought they smelled
smoke;
their lips pound sand softly when they speak
a most pleasing and subtle sensation of earth
shifting
ever so,
wet and imprintable,
made smooth by the rising tongue-
tide
their bodies like fresh bread
and cool stones and
red wine
thick hair that tucks nicely into fists, hips
like little T levers - pull down!
......
and I have and while
sprinklers and Sirens soaked me
proper,
I sort of need sticks to make
fire.
I don't know what it is about
alcohol
that makes sidewalk chalk -
bathed in orange moonlight,
sexier than the spiders
eyeing
the box.
Dignity in the stillness, I suppose.
Chiseled tips.
Soft grips.
Insistent.
The box doubles over,
seems sick and heartbroken.
The gecko waves the spider
waves the worm waves the
lonesome.
It must Surely be the case for everyone
that alcohol makes them long for
20
21
23
27
20fucking9.
I'll tell you another thing about
sidewalk
chalk,
there are 28 different
milky colors,
and not One
seems fitting of a tight-lipped kiss.
Not ONE comes close to coloring
the expectation of sweetness
replaced with long sighs.
If I Had to put a label on it,
I'd say loneliness most closely resembles
two cursive words
and a dumb, fucking bird.
Out of love is easy.
I've memorized 26 dinosaur species -
one for each letter of the alphabet.
Apatosaurus.
Women are thin, well-manicured nails
and I am the gum under
the shipping desk.
They were here before me.
Or I was here before them.
Either way, it shouldn't take
a fucking salon specialist
to know they don't belong
down here.
Brachiosaurus.
Men treat me like a song
they can't quite remember the words to.
Which is just as well.
They'd be singing it all day, those fucking crows.
Those mouthy ravens in black
top hats.
Those pencil canes and cartoon cigars.
Try this - lip to lip, you beautiful idiot.
We'll hum our way through and no one'll know.
Not even you.
Corythosaurus.
Younger women seem to think I've found some answer.
They watch from the shore
and reach for my ribs,
hoping I'll reveal some secret
skin pouch.
And inside'll be bite-size bits of know-how,
harvested with a rock I only show
close friends.
Deinonychus.
Younger men, however,
hold out their palms so I can see
the apparent use of soap AND water,
and I reward them with
white bread and string cheese,
and they smile
and I smile,
and I know I'll be spoken of fondle-y
in therapy.
Zigongosaurus.
Kids don't think much of me, really,
but I love every one with a fraction of the seriousness
to which I love my own son.
He never washes his hands
and only pretends to brush his teeth.
But he lives for free gum
and mammals
and Twinkle Twinkle.
That is the love I understand.
That is love I house in abundance.
Thumbing through annals
of dust covered
ex-
lovers,
I remembered all at once
the love stylings of each one -
Call you when I want you love.
Use God to get to know you love.
Drunk, just wanna fuck you love.
Only meant to hold you love.
Girlfriend's with her family love.
Wife doesn't understand me love.
Got time and feeling lonely love.
Could be my one and only love.
The more I saw, the more I felt
desperate for the return
of love,
Any love,
even if it's just for titles.
We're something like cursive
me and him,
we never truly pick up the pen
just
make lines a little thinner
every now and again
thicker now,
heavy on the swoops,
our conversations,
life collisions,
yelps and yearnings, they
sort of look like giant
loops
symbols for infinity,
maybe that's more what I mean
that being said,
I feel quite certain
that while love sounds like whispers now,
in time,
we'll learn to scream.
It isn't healthy to stare at a blinking prompt.
It's true. It told me so.
Cept.
It looked less like a blinking prompt
and more like a blinking prompt
with exceptionally dirty
glasses.
He cleans his lenses. Blink.
Stares off, then at me. Blink.
Looks at the fridge, then at me. Blink.
blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink
Don't you ever get tired, he says.
I didn't think blinking prompts could talk.
After all. It's usually me
who does the talking.
Usually, it's me
making heads or tails of a moment.
Fluid and flowing.
Turned on by the out-come.
But with him, I am certain
we'll never pass
inspection.
The lights will keep blinking.
Blinking.
Blink.
It isn't healthy to stare at either thing.
Lucky for me,
the avoidance is
mutual.
I can understand the Love, I think
cos I understand
the Fear.
We assume lovers mean
that we might not die alone,
but we do,
always have,
and I don't understand
folks afraid of Knowing
Both.
Understanding takes the edge off.
I've stared my plot square in its hole.
Even so,
I think I held you
like I was scared of letting
go.
I mean I want it or I don't want it
(but I usually want it)
and when I get it, it doesn't feel like
I got anything
at all.
But I want it, so I get it
and I get it, and I get it
and even with
the ones that get me
it never feels
I've gotten much.
But when He says
that sex means nothing,
he means it's nothing
so why bother.
And I get that
and it's prob'ly
the only thing I'll ever
get.
I am trying to explain motherhood
to a young woman terrified
of children.
She'd asked, after all.
Rarely would I have
offered up such
information.
"I used to be terrified of little ones, too", I say.
"Now I'm just terrified
for them"
Her eyes widen and while
she seems to understand,
It doesn't appear I've made her feel
any better.
Pablo, you dirty ol' bean
you
lover of Spain and sweet nectar
ines,
where do you haunt when I
need you?
You'd hear the cadence of rain
ticking tocks on my window,
paradiddles forming puddles,
something about
time.
I hear instead
the whine from my dog
who'd slept all sunny
afternoon,
and only
NOW
does he decide
it might be a good time to
poop.
Where does your heart-shaped ghost go
when I need you?
In traffic, a girl
runs briskly the other way.
You'd see a summer breeze
dragging its fingers through a field of
golden wheat.
I see instead
a traffic jam
until she makes
the corner.
Skipper fucks like he can't remember
whether the frozen pizza said
350 or
400
and I sort of figured he'd be
the kind to stare off
into
space
and consider the true eff
iciency
of his swirly gig light
fixtures
I don't mind so much;
I just need his junk
thrusting deep
questioning
whether he thinks
pizza is
burning.
I have been feeling
some kind of
way, the
maintenance man with the
wooden hanger shoulders, the
angles on his hands and
one and only
chin
he pushes himself into me, leans
forward, pressing his lips against
my neck where I've
decided to let my hair grow long,
just in case, I thought,
you know
he's calm like described surface
tension,
"hop up" he says
he means
he watches
way too many
dirty
movies
and rather than unstick the physic
al, rather than get into the problem with phys
ics,
"Just keep your hands beneath my sand"
"Run your soft lips ship
aground"
he describes a long lost beautiful moment
punctuated with tall glass commas
and pudgy jello periods
I don't recall it the way he recalls it
but that he recalls it at all
is nice
I guess
he paints me like a classical artist
hesitant to join the 'what is form really?' movement
every going-gray hair looks as good up close as it does far away
but it reeks of a pastime
I'm no longer allowed
"Don't you have any stories we're not drunk in?" I ask
but he frowns and asks me not to move,
else he'll have to start
all over
"Does he talk about me ever?"
I ask, but the silence that follows is typical.
After all, it was Me who went falling out of love with Him,
so why should I get to finger through
the dirt?
"Alright, you don't have to tell me that.
Can you at least tell me how the sex is for you?
He always seemed kind of bored with me.
Like he would rather have been doing
anything else."
I ask, but again, the silence hangs.
It's no wonder he trusts this
slinky tee
with his secrets.
Skipper is square and breaded on all sides.
He smiles as a byproduct of speaking
and uses eye contact like a child uses
conjunctions.
He's nice, though.
I like his squareness.
Like I could stuff him in a locker
and swear it was made
just for him.
I imagine what he must be like in bed
as he asks me what I'd like to do next.
I want to take him home and see
how far that cornered crust goes.
I want to peel the greasy parts
and get straight to the white,
less flavorful meat.
I want to toss our specs in the kitchen disposal
and grind away at the things
we know we ought to want.
I think this as I sip my faggoty cocktail,
"Oh, whatever you wanna do"