hot jazz trickles down from a speaker
and she spontaneously melts into bright movement
tracing a simple pattern like the ocean tide

toward me--teasing
naked legs whispering together

then away--beckoning
shirt half unbuttoned

famous musical hips
hanging under clouds
sloshing slow as liquid
but i don't follow instead
i fell into a mind trance legs folded
wet mouth stretched to the floor
flesh spasm humming prophecy
bony knees pointed up at the bright warm sun
shirt without sleeves like
a snake catching sun on its curves or
a slender boy with a runaway heartbeat

this delicate yellow muse
truth in pure female form
either a smokestack or -show
leaning on the glossy grand piano i live in
wearing a tattered old shirt of mine
teething on a quiet cigarette smiling
and slowly pouring a wine not redder
than my tired eyes
                                     "please come to bed                                                            
 ­                  it'll be light again soon"                          
paint splattered over furniture and on the floor
we ****** each other to sleep
under scaffolds
in pools of turquoise
magenta
steel blue
saffron
in front of a tarnished mirror

but i've spent too much of my life
looking into mirrors so
now i use her jeweled eyes
watching planes leave white fingers
of smoke across the sky on a whim
i've spent too many sleepless nights
so now i use pure language in
her eager ears as my dream journal
under the frail wireless moon

in the morning my cold feet
moving like phantoms in the
cemetery fog find
a wine cork in the hallway
a splintered broom handle or
a pile of buffalo bones
just outside the kitchen in the dark
and thank god i came home from denver

because i can hear her purring
all night with her tranquil head
snuggled innocent into my chest
and i'm naked freckled with ash
kissed deep all over
no fear of tenderness because we've
been mixing signals all night like
a satellite caught in a lightning storm
but always connected
some warm part of me touching
some slick part of her
fused into odd shapes by morning
breast to breast on a mattress
practicing silent naked yoga and
as her lips find my adam's apple
she confesses that
i'm a failure
only in
my
own
head.