women say they want a sensitive man but they mock me when i sit at the piano crying for hours holding a lighthearted paper candle and a smile tucked in between my lips

they say they want a hard working man with ***** fingernails but
they claw at me if i turn a sun-browned shoulder against them in bed

they say they would love a cultured man but they cringe when i kiss them with lips tasting of whiskey & cigar smoke or touch them with fingers gentle as soft old paper

they say they dig the cold but they huddle in blankets when i stay up all night dancing naked across the lawn listening to joni mitchell in january

they say they want their own sugar space but turn sour when i linger and wake up dreaming of becoming an astronaut

they say they're comfortable with my past imperfections but it's my fault when i have a nightmare about being strung out on the perfume of another woman

they want a man who can write a song but they struggle when i anchor a poem to their delicate ankles and fill their empty rooms with shamefully broken pencils

they love my beautiful tattoos and piercings but shake me when i spend days wrapped inside a coral shell singing a lullaby

they want the idea of a man they've read about in books but won't tolerate me when i read them the atrocities in the sunday paper under the lampshade of an oak tree

women say they'll take me as i am but get lonely when i wander for a week and come home buried in the scent of a rock and roll bar

they say they make friends easily, like me, but can't stand to come home to talking & laughing cynical & drunk in a house full of strangers

they want a quiet man who loves them like the stars but scream when i learn to fly at the mercy of the weather & can't be captured

they want to live naughty with the thick musk of a man but act bewildered when they're caught soaking wet and weak in the knees

women say they love men with a tolerance but get jealous when i'm dizzy drunk at dawn on cheap tequila and the memory of my mother

they want a man who lives inside a corridor of words but hate me when they realize artful compliments are only cages of pretty lies

they're helpless for a man with grace but hate me when i'm pitiful and clumsy in the dark after blowing out candles and closing windows in the middle of june

they say they'll only fall in love with a lover of music but audibly cough when i hush them as Coltrane makes dazzling sodium fall across my face

they all wish for a man with careful eyes
but mine are blue and empty in the end
& it gets lonely
so i will no longer carry a song for them in my heart
like a trail-weary cowboy
no lust
no memory
no guilt
no cups
no whistles
or jewels in my vulnerable shadow

i dream of burying my face
in your hair and inhaling your halo on
these cold and woman-less nights
after the all-male beer drinking sessions
nightmares i have to pull myself out of somehow
because there is no small warm body
to hold me when the paranoid shadows come close
howling on the window curtains so
i've set fire to twenty pages of poems
standing naked in the center of the room
the smoke weaves like three charmed cobras
and i just want to be home with you

i am home with you
after two days lying in the hammock
reading prose about clouds of white doves
and three nights in bed
drinking wine and laughing
with the record player on
we have succumbed to temptation
whispering about living on the moon together
your voice tickling my ear
pure like the song of a bird firmly in flight
insecure and exhilarating
your cheeks glowing like polished copper
in the candlelight from the bathroom
leg muscles trembling as we lock eyes
in a truly romantic spot
through one of the mirrors

when you go to work i don't feel so tough
i write you letters about scattered isolation and
rain interrupting sequences of thought
drenching the spruce trees you planted
as i lie on our bed and breathe
the odor your hair left on the pillow
meditation comes easiest with these plumes
and i have no place else to go
so please come back home to a
whole healthy man with
big holes in his ears an
uncanny adoration of your paintings
sacred pyramids in his eyes
and a you-sized hole in his chest

if you take tiny
steps
toward me and

i take tiny
steps
toward you then

in the oblivion of a forest at night
we can make body configurations together
i will bloom like an eternal daisy
blessed by your illuminated soul
in the small garden of silk skin
draped across your collarbone
or
just eat an apple in the hollow of a big oak tree together

i am a god
lying in my own meadow
under the sky i created
i'm monumental and
i will outlive everyone

but my mind is clouded and
full of ice-cold sheet lightning
sometimes
daydreaming about finger-banging
alone in my dingy room
i speak to walls with the lungs of the wind
my scratchy pen filling poetry books
that no one wants to read

but you said i have the type of
personality disorder that you admire
and you're just looking for someplace
to snooze and cuddle out of
reach of the witching wind

well i'm the only man left
the storm took everyone else
and i was born in a magnetic desert
at the edge of the world

all of the sudden i'm burning up fences
and breaking up labyrinth walls to
find you in a lush garden i hardly remember
under a tall willow tree
long black hair streaming across
your face and bare chest

you make something in me
leap and sing remember
i told you i have a type
and it's complete annihilation
under the wet rose of your latin kiss