****. I’ve come undone in your arms. under your sweet breath. my back arches and i submit to each one of my little deaths. my thighs hold little worlds in them and you were born a voyageur, a vagabond. Feed to me my little deaths; these forbidden ecstasies. each one finding its way back into you, into you. and out again. This is where it ends, isn’t it?

I don’t play chess with love.
There is no strategy, no foresight,
No due process; only a knot in the gut
Which prevents all action
That does not result in your touch.

I don’t chase after love.
I lie in wait, in unfamiliar places,
Abandoned mines and filthy drunk tanks-
Watch morning break through the cloud
With stupid hope there are no more false dawns.

I don’t bear false witness to love.
I tie a ribbon to the loaded gun
And hand it over to the woman
Holding a scalpel with a smile
And earnest for my confession.

I don’t want to do this anymore.
My heavy limbs, lack of light.
Waking up to Ground Zero
And sleeping with a lie of chemicals .
I don’t want to forget how to love.

I don’t think the choice is mine.

There is a storm
gathering in
            my womb
soon to explode
into a thousand
crimson stars
lighting up
my veins with fire
and unraveling
deep-set,
          knotted scars
and the gentle rage
outside my window
presses on, inside my head
as I lie here,
my thoughts twisted
in a cozy, yet empty bed
my thoughts unfurl
in misty haze
           curl into
                      smoky
                 rouge
as nightsky thunder rolls
into creamed saxophone
                          deluge
the snare drum beats
in firelight
ripple sheets
in silky flutter
as my fingers strum
my womanly instruments
into loamy, primal butter
my voice in quiet utterance
as the heavens open
           to heavy rains
                    that liquefy
                           my desert
                 hydrate my
           bare-soul caves
so I electrify my echoes
into fruited, crystal drips
frothing up my
cherry wine
upon these moistened,
hungry lips

on the puke and blood painted
walk in front of a Juarez *******
sat a blind mendicant,

his cup half full with pesos, pennies
and a grand FDR dime or two

beside him a cur loused in lassitude,
perhaps the personal, impotent Cerberus
for this den of five dollar iniquity

sixteen I was, an acute expatriate
from a drunken El Paso house home

free to roam the streets of old Mexico,
so long as I didn't wake any Policia
or **** on the wrong curb

an empty belly and nascent love of drink swung my moral compass
from wobbly to dead down

and I filched the eyeless beggar's blue tin

he couldn't see, but the jingle jangle of his coins sliding
into my pocket filled his old ears

"ladron, ladron, cabron, " he screamed

thief, thief, *******

his words trailed me down the alley into an avenue of neon noise,
until I slipped into a bar, nouveau riche

my ***** was better than a buck so I ordered two beers
and a double tequila

feeling fine until I smelled the dung of the dog,
scribed penance in the grooves of my Keds

olfactory justice for stealing from the blind; a small price to pay
for the riches of drunkenness, the sweet taste of oblivion

(Juarez, Mexico, 1965)