Do you feel
the same
pleasure of twisting
yourself
around his words,
line-by-line,
to disentangle his meaning;
reading and
re-reading,
fitting into his forms,
again-and-
again,
not so much for
the story,
but for the stretch?

always
it starts the
same

cold, callous
and
scared

always
the leaving is the same

I cannot help
but wonder
if
they are all the same
woman

but really
it is just that I
am the same man.

carving arches
twist my gaze
winding sight slides
      down
        her waist
pooling -
   caught

rivers does she drain
by trickles

           drips
insidious
a thousand ships!

       those hips
    those hips

piston-packed fire!
crank shaft
       twist
bevel      beating
      consciousness

vision slips
will-o-the-wisps
"Eat me" "Drink me"
second-hand             miss

and then she's gone
no last fix

I was supposed
to be a better man
but here I am
and I
am not

those boys
back in the 70s
who ran
when their number came in
the lottery

they were trying to
save their child souls

which had grown
light with freedom

she told me
it was positive
and that
she wanted to keep it

and
I ran

Saw a man leave
and return a
lady
with a blond curly wig

did he feel better
in his own skin?
when he tried to
order a daiquiri
but I could only give him
a *** on the beach

his initial defeat
became infinite retreat
into some woman
whom no one
ever knew

Both of my grandfathers
are dead

but it
is okay because
I never knew
them

they are
merely an
unfelt absence

I found a
sweetness in the
world
last friday it was
a chocolate scone
that broke
perfectly with
just the right amount of chips
(and I fed the rest to
tiny birds)
so sweet that
I went back
twice more
to find none
and told the baker
"Make more of those
delicious scones".

when he did I bought
two more
(sharing the second)
and the next day
even
I returned

too sweet I
rushed it
down
hungrily leaving
not even
crumbs