I like baked fish
I like a fish in a dish
I like Lillian Gish
I like to dress up
in a gigantic wide
brimmed hat and
go to the movies

I like smooth stones
I like sun bleached bones
I like raspberry scones
I like to hide behind
the bookshelf and
scream when you
walk by

I like sleeping dogs
I like foggy fogs
I like Prague
I like to sob into
a pillow and never
wake up again

I want to make a
ring around the rosey
(a pocket full of poesy)
a lean tiny bit of me
LISTEN TO ME!
I scream
I care
I want to lie under
your every mistake
Love darling
(hands, darling
around your near
and dear throat)
You *******
you can't brag or even
gloat? your love means
not a ******* thing
and I was the last one
in on your hoax

That's okay
that's just fine
my wrists sticky
with someone else's
the halfhearted
coax of no particular
design

It is not the blood
that hurts; it's not
even the love trust
stuck in your throat

It's the absence of
all of that

That makes me gone
for good

I have decided (and
there is simply no
arguing here) 'if'
is the sexiest word
in the English language
and once unloaded of
its baggage and all of
those maddening
contingencies, 'if' is
like two legs dancing
around in a striptease
'if' is the most lewd,
the most suggestive
thing on two legs,
one letter leaning
against the other,
the most beautiful
***** you have ever
seen, standing on
a street corner
the 'i' buck naked while
the 'f' blandly looks
away (yes, too often
the 'i' is an embarrassing
display)
the 'f'  staggers
under its own sort
of weight, having
lent itself to 'u' and  
the beginning of 'fu' 'fu'
'fu' you (but you are
already stuck now
aren't you?)
pay the 'i' up front
while the 'f' crooks
a finger and you
can do nothing
but obey this is
why the 'i' so often
breaks itself in two
always too much
but never quite
enough, without
the 'f' nothing
absolutely nothing
will do

when I told my father
"I wanta go
to art school"
well
he flew into a
rage- having been
there himself and after
******* in a wooden
box for four years
(with NOTHING
to show for it)
I dunno, maybe
I was drunk
or maybe I hated
him as much as I do
now but it sure made
a good joke
many years passed
and having not
committed suicide
before it was too
late I went to off
to get my degree
in philosophy
HAH!

You hodge podge
of a person you
random facsimile
you who would
pull yourself off
of four legs just
to have a go
at me

Climbing up the
evolutionary ladder
keeping me at bay
while that lizard
brain of yours
feels the real time
of our mutual
decay

Something soft in me
the warm red blood
in me, you could smell it
even from under that stone
with one eye peering
above the mud while
the other eye plays
dead, white as a
bone

You kept your weapons
well hid but in the soft
light of night and under
a bowl of stars I could
hear your claws sliding
over white flesh and
scars

You, fooling me by
standing on two legs
and showing off those
practiced and opposable
thumbs- how ******
gallant of you

(And I watched him
fall on his neck, biting
himself in half; in his
parody of a human
he forgot to add a
spine)

So often it is shortly after
the worst of them drops
dead and then like magic
the insufferable ****
becomes the man
above all men

Already cast in bronze
he is, before even one
blade of grass can grow
directly above his
sainted head

Of course when he
was quite alive she
could not wish him
more than dead
and all of the misery
he brought?
She turned into a
eulogy instead

The only solace left
to offer this deadly
boring woman?
with any bit of luck
she will soon be
joining him

I haven't had my heart broken.
But I have thrown it against another person
and broke it myself.

He would've looked handsome in wedding photos,
but even more in a suit and tie
on the other side of the divorce court.

He would roll up his sleeves like a lawyer.
He would say things like:
You ruined my life when you got pregnant.

As if babies were something a woman conjured inside
herself out of lovesickness and desperation.
A snare in which to trap a man like him.

But instead I broke myself on him like surf on the ramparts.
I foamed and spat and washed myself right back
out to sea again.

And all I have is a notch on my map, marking
a shallow harbor,
a few torn sails
and an empty womb.