Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

He loved me with the fierceness of a friday night
(Wine, smoke and moving hips)

You loved me with the tenderness of a tuesday morning
(Blinds, sunlight and fingertips)

We have grown into fresh peaches,
Full blooming curves, rosy surfaces.
Each teeming with the desire
To be handled by a pair of hands.
So, tell me little peach,

How did it feel like to have your juice
Run down his throat?

We are no longer flower childs,
We are maidens, suddenly seated in front
Of the mirror, the ends of our hair
Carrying the weight of our youth.

Mornings, i sit with my knees
propped up like a temple and I pray
that love come as close as loneliness does.

(One night I tried to kiss my own arms
-a train track from elbows to wrists to fingers-
With the lights off. Was it my lips or arm that burned?
In the interlude of tears between my closed eyes
I wondered what it’ll be like
To have another claim me by the mouth
Like that.)

Even when I’m not in love
I’m more in love than you are
In love.

In the morning she eats garlic,
A bowl of them, boiled in a mixture.
Then medicine, then some kind of a
Breakfast. She stares into the blank
Of a day. Everything the same.
She does her usual things: clean,
Sweep, exercise, sometimes she reads.
I do not know what she does in the day,
Only the setting sun tells me of the lights
She doesn’t leave on, because “electrical bills”.

He says she spoiled the fridge, the kettle,
Even the tv doesn’t make a sound anymore.

She’s like a child. She whines, laughs,
Tells me off. She observes, dismisses.
She is the dying tip of an autumn leaf.
My silence is the autumn wind.
Cold, but not cold enough.

I do not know of the things she does in the day.
What does she do when the food is cooking in the pan?
Or when it rains and she rushes to save the laundry.
Only the chattering and muttering
From her creased mouth,
(the neighbours, groceries, the tv)
Tells me that she speaks only to herself.

She switches the tv on
before she leaves the house.
She sleeps before 9 pm.

She leaves in June, and I don’t know what she does in the day.