The claws will come out
Of the bars,
My Lust.
Oh yes, they will first peek, curious.
So you reach out,
Even though this alley is dark
With boxes of people
Everywhere you look.
No, it is not safe

Because then, the scratch,
Maybe it's play?
Then she digs in,
That god ******
Ferrell pussycat.

She's never been easy to tame,
Whether it was the Hispanic boys
On that public school playground,
Or the teenager suburbanites yelling
From their car windows.
It definitely wasn't the stray tomcats
She met in the park,
Because of them
She darts glances with
A slick, rapid gleam in her eyes.

But maybe, Oh maybe,
Sweet, drunken docker,
Maybe you will glance back,
Just a pet, hen keep walking.
Maybe, she'll follow you home,
Purring as she presses
Her tail against your legs.

Don't forget that,
I whisper to
The pillow under
Your cool moonlight.
A sacrifice to
My God,

To your terra-cotta lips,
Warm and glimmering,
Like the tiles on a July day,
On that chateau we stayed at in Nice.

To your laugh,
Gaffawing at a viral sensation,
Bursting like the atomic bombs,
To me, it's a champagne cork,
That night in the balcony fountain.

To your eyelids closed,
The same ivory shade of your breast,
And our children's cheeks
As you held them, cuddle them,
Tickle them, sob with them,
So right in our roomy, rickety home.

To your breath,
Taken in like a quick pull of a line,
Your arching spine,
Parallels the bridge above our heads,
As we sail on
Catalina in the Sound.

To your hands,
Crinkled soft like paper,
Tears ran down those creases
As we passed through the shadows.

But don't cry, wherever you are,
For I am with you.
In the creaking of the pedals,
As you tumble off your bike.
The sheets pulled over your face,
Your body racked with sobs for
Some boy, a cosmic second.

I am with you in the bright gold of your cords,
As you cross the stage for your diploma.
I am with you on the dreary playground,
As children in puffer coats and hats pick fun at you.
I am with you in the collegiate cologne
of the moment you gave it all up,
Some boy, a cosmic second.

But I am with you most in
The moment you gained it all back,
That supernova, explosion
When we realized, like two old friends
We'd been there together all the long,
Birth to *** to birth to sick to death
And all the love between,
And then there was no part.

If I could draw or
Paint or sketch,
Or sculpt or even
******* embroider,
My self-portrait
Would be titled

Cliché, Bright Eyed Girl,
Girl Who’s Falling
For ‘The Bad Boy,’
Girl who Doesn’t
Stand a Chance:
Girl Self-Involved in Petty Problems.

I’d be a surrealist
I’d befriend Zelda Fitzgerald
In Paris, then the clinic:

A sad clown face
So eager and fragile,
Drooping low,
Fair, but not the fairest
Dripping, melting,
Like those clocks, or something

into a dream,
Where I, a Botticelli,
Venus,
You, a Gonzo trip

And you’d press into
My soft full hips
With nicotine stained fingers.
A bee coating the peony,
Such slick pollen
From past flights of fancy:
You linger for the most succulent taste.

I’d trace the ink of your tattoos,
They lay beneath your skin.
I’d crawl down there too,
Pushing up against your veins.


With the crest of a wave,
We’d crash together,
Golden silk surrounding us:
Coming
Out of the foam.

Then I come back,
Back into the frame:
A sad little girl,
Face lowered,
Unruly hair shadowing her face,
While you look past,
Walking away in the foreground.

But I can’t paint,
Draw, sculpt, whatever.
I’m no Dali.
Just like I
Can’t make you
Fall, fall, fall,
into a cliché,
In love
With me.