Sharpen the knife by whetstone,
walk to the shore, hold the blade
perpendicular to the fat belly
blanketed with tiny mirrors glinting
sun into your eyes

    Find the bridge decorated in promise locks
    cast a net,
    prime your tongue
    squeeze air from your lungs into
    gurgling words decorating her ears,
    be impossible
    be the everything
    lock yourself inside as a habit
    as the indispensable limb

Scrape scales with the cutting edge,
send them flying in the air
landing like lily-pads
breaking the surface of salt-water

    Touch your roughest hand to the softest
    palette of the face with knuckles
    first tenderly like a mother
    and then violate in flight,
    land harshly
    crush the rosy palette into a
    cacophony of betrayal on the
    cheek, corrupt the soft curve of the lip
    decorate the chest in crimson,
    cut out trust from deep inside her
    womb  

Bathe the memory in a white tub
kissed by carmine, let it flow down the
hypnotizing hurricane drain
through hair-matted pipes.
His after-shave knuckle tenderness
will perfume the steam,
permeate your memories
make home deep inside capillaries

Wash the fish in the Atlantic – let it
kiss its forehead, puncture the gut
with the ****** end, pull back,
let crimson blood and iron
perfume spill in globules onto emptying
tides washing out to sea

Dawn crab will come to the shallows,
eat the scraps with their pincers.
In the morning gulls recognize backs
hunched over by the water, swoop down

Pull out the curved hook from your cheek
dragging you in matrimony
drop the shredded robe of sinew and worth,
leave the tatters on the bathroom floor

    Go to her in the evening
    sew the pretty back together into a quilt,
    stain it with ****** knuckles and
    kiss her goodnight into resentment

Others will come into your life,
one will recognize the perpetual
circling in the epicentre,
swing prayers into your centrifuge of
consequence and
pull out the spears from
your chest, mend broken hopes
straighten the shattered
bones into a home indispensable to him
and show you simply, Love