i am trying not
to write poems about ***.
but it’s not easy.
everywhere our souls and our bodies are being
torn apart by genocide and violence
but all i can think of
is the sound you make
when i kiss the soft sweet-smelling hollow
carved into the place
where your neck meets your shoulderblades.
i’ve never ****** someone
without wanting to write poems about them.
you see, it’s a new language
i’m learning, this calligraphy
of the flesh,
how touch and sensation can transmit messages
unknown by hastily scratched letters.
they say when you learn a new language
the most important thing you can do
is practice it.
i am discovering now
the art of translation
how skin and hair and warmth and movement
can be described in these
empty syllables we pour from our mouths
these words we caress each other with
the only other thing our tongues are really good for.
i am a pious monk
dutifully copying the holy verses written on your body
to a cold thin page
hoping only that in doing so
i can preserve the memory of your touch
long after death has taken us both.
and i am trying not to write poems about ***
but i want to honor what you have taught me
about these strange forms we were given
this is merely a manifestation
of our animal incarnation
this is all i can do
to give voice to desire
the thing calling
wanting only to be heard.

we ran frantic in the dark
to the bridge
feet slapping on
dry stone like stranded fish
we were beached
belly-up in spring humid
with the frogs singing our
fevered song we
stripped cotton from our backs
the water aching for us
the trees louder than our
naked voices we
slipped into the shimmer
of the moon-drunk water
the forest fell in love with us
that night and even the stars
wanted to be near us so they
fell laughing into the bushes
threw their light all around our feet
and lit the earth so we
could dance

he was two opposing elements,
the coldest warmth i’ve ever felt.
he was night mixed with light,
flight mixed with fight.
his shoulders full of freckles
were fields of tiny fires,
his hair a molten eruption
spilling down my hands.
he set off bombs inside me,
rendered my forest
a mound of smoky soot,
reached into me
to uproot the undergrowth.

he was loud.
i was listening.
he was bright.
i was willing.

i would have followed him
into the mouths of volcanoes,
built temples for him,
a hearth to rest his head in,
a small wallspace to flicker in,
let him **** up my oxygen.
I wanted to dig into him like a jack o’ lantern,
reach into his pulpy insides
and scoop out sadness with the seeds,
carve a smile into his flesh,
light a candle in his breast,
so he could shine,
but he was too cold.

i kept striking those matches
til my fingers burnt,
and every time the flame
touched his delicate wick,
we’d both go out.

at two years old,
your curious hands
happened upon a bottle of
flea medicine
that lay waiting on the counter.
your mother was absent as usual,
off on an errand,
or walking the dog.
unwatched,
your enterprising fingers
eased the lid from the container,
and you poured the sweet-smelling
liquid down your throat.
the world was still so new to you,
and it seemed to be made for tasting.
who could blame a child
with a thirst for more than
mushy peas and applesauce?
two days later
they released you from the hospital,
your stomach pumped dry.

when you were six,
idly exploring the woods of your mother’s
sprawling estate,
you paused a moment from imagining
faerie queens flitting about in the greenery
to take rest on a log,
your undiscerning eye not betraying
its secret: within it was a nest
of wasps,
and thinking they were faeries
you dared not move as they
rose in a cloud above your head
and overtook you,
leaving your body peppered with
painful angry sores.
you fell to the ground.
a hired man,
strong and tall as the oak trees,
saw your quick descent and
ventured after you,
made a hammock of his arms
to bear you like a fallen soldier
back to your mother’s house,
his tough sun-leathered skin
immune to the assaults of the
faerie battalion.

at eight,
playing in the small child-sized house
in your aunt’s garden,
you sought to make stained glass
from the broken shards of the playhouse window.
having no tool at hand,
what better way to
shatter the clear, flat plane
than with your fist?
before reason could take hold of you,
you drove your hand
through the glass,
and the raw edges cut deep into your veins.
blood flowed in rivers
from your wrist.
your aunt, ever watchful,
rushed from the house to
stop your body’s catharsis
with a dishcloth.
the jagged unpainted shards
lay forgotten on the ground.