why did you go
little fourpaws?
you forgot to shut
your big eyes.

where did you go?
like little kittens
are all the leaves
which open in the rain.

little kittens who
are called spring,
is what we stroke
maybe asleep?

do you know?or maybe did
something go away
ever so quietly
when we weren’t looking.

when i was little
my christian parents
would tell me not to be scared of the thunder
because it was only god moving furniture around
making room for me in heaven

they told me
that the lightning was only angels
accidentally dropping pieces of gold to earth
sometimes i would sit outside with an umbrella
hoping a piece of gold would fall on our driveway

but angels don't exist
and neither does god
and the thunder is only echoes of the lightning
and the lightning is only columns of electrons
at approximately fifty thousand degrees fahrenheit
vibrating the surrounding air like a tubular drum
causing the sound of thunder

i won't ever forget their reactions
when i told them i didn't believe anymore
my grandmother gave me a bible the following christmas
but i sold it to a used book store the next week
and i used the money to buy a pack of cigarettes

i remember that day well
because there was a thunderstorm
but it was probably just god
moving my furniture back to how it was
because he knows i won't be getting into heaven
anytime soon

as is the sea marvelous
from god’s
hands which sent her forth
to sleep upon the world

and the earth withers
the moon crumbles
one by one
stars flutter into dust

but the sea
does not change
and she goes forth out of hands and
she returns into hands

and is with sleep….

love,
    the breaking

of your
        soul
        upon
my lips

“kitty”. sixteen,5′ 11″,white,*******.

ducking always the touch of must and shall,
whose slippery body is Death’s littlest pal,

skilled in quick softness.  Unspontaneous.  cute,

the signal perfume of whose unrepute
focusses in the sweet slow animal
bottomless eyes importantly banal,

Kitty. a *****. Sixteen
                            you corking brute
amused from time to time by clever drolls
fearsomely who do keep their sunday flower.
The babybreasted broad “kitty” twice eight

—beer nothing,the lady’ll have a whiskey-sour—

whose least amazing smile is the most great
common divisor of unequal souls.

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands,with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress,good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge—my girl’s tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die.  When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me,and to kiss my face and head.

when god lets my body be

from each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles therefrom

the purpled world will dance upon
between my lips which did sing

a rose shall beget the spring
that maidens whom passion wastes

will lay between their little *******
my strong fingers beneath the snow

into strenuous birds shall go
my love walking in the grass

their wings will touch with her face
and all the while shall my heart be
with the bulge and nuzzle of the sea