The dead often come to visit me.
My favorite corpse a delightful copy of
Something it used to be.
He comes to my door and I embrace him
He smells like aged formaldehyde under a coat
Of strawberries and mints
His front teeth are still spaced evenly
Sed for one
Hanging like a faulty Christmas tree light
Right over his holiday red bottom lip
If I could still kiss them I would tell him
As sweetly as I ever did, “your lips are as soft as whale blubber.”
The way they used to move around and in between mine
Makes me think your mouth could have danced on Broadway
And the crowd could have thrown up at its beloved star roses
Only the petals would rub your lips too rough
I would tell him, “baby I miss you.” And
“I’m sorry I never returned your favorite book.”
But in all fairness I think you have never returned anything of mine
Not my favorite blouse, my grandmother’s portrait
Not my heart. Not yet
For it is little and porous and too dead to give to
Someone one who is still alive
I bet you keep it there in your back pocket
Riddled with granola crumbs and sticky excrements of gum
And maybe every other haunting you take it out
Before sitting on it and you dust it off
And kiss it.
There is something sad about that.
Having your lips touch things I can’t feel
You might as well have ****** on my liver
I wouldn’t feel that either.
Come to me when you cannot rest in peace
With pen and paper and too much coffee
And in between cigarette puffs kiss the outside
Parts of me I can feel.