With a warm glow
around my tired bones,
I feel the chemicals
slowly take effect.

It's ok with me, precious,
if you think I'm ugly.
I'll love you just the same.

My hands knew your skin
before we ever touched lips
because you are missing from me.

It's ok my dear,
if we never live
I'll love you just the same.
It's the honey on your lips
that keeps me on my knees.

Rhetorical questions
Asked and answered.
supporting, Sifting,
and sorting bafflement
Praxis

For awhile the whorls
were made of sadness and fears
from my internal musings
and the desires of my heart
extrapolated by magpies

Like you said,
They busted the lock.

You are going to die
before me.

I already know this.

You are going to get fat
and go completely blind
and probably,
eventually, they will
cut some parts off.

You are going to fall apart
in front of me.

I know this.

I still choose to stay.
I will be there
through all the appointments,
the stickings and pokings and cuttings and bleedings.

I have only wiped
a few *****
in my life.
Mine,
my son's,
a few babies
of friends.

I already plan on wiping yours
when you cannot.

I will draw
little sugar skulls
on your prosthetic feet.

I will make sure you always have enough medicine and it is always refrigerated.
I will help you
in and out
of the bathtub.
I will massage your legs
and arms
and back
and head
and neck,

every day.

I will make our boys breakfast
and walk the dogs
and make sure everything
goes back in the
same exact spot
and keep a file with all the pertinent medical information
so I can fill out all the paperwork.

I will take you to
all those folk rock shows you love so much
and describe the singers to you.

We will still garden together.
I can see you in a chair,
barking out questions
about our harvest and me,
going back and forth,
bringing you the biggest squash
to hold.

You see, I have given up thinking
I am ever going to
give myself to anyone else.

It is you and you alone.

So, when you start to fall apart,
and you will fall apart,
don't worry baby.
I am going to be there to wipe your ***.

Your pale skin wrapped
only in a black corset
and ebony hair,
the welts begin their ascension
towards grace.

No need to burn when
I am around for I bring
enough pain to satisfy
all of our dark desires.

That time is dying and
I have new rituals for your
milky curves.

Tonight you crawl through me
as I bind your ankles
to your wrists,
my thoughts to
your blood.

Submission, like honey.
Slow and ageless,
forever ready for my tongue.

Tasting bliss centuries old
and loosening the knots
inside, we lick our wounds clean.

Time and distance
don't exist in our cathedral.