Knowing you, I am like a girl
                                  who willfully touches hemlock to her tongue.
For among the boney noose of pearls
                   strung up my spine,
                                 you, with hands that can hold
        both knives and violin bows
                                                leak a piece of air into the streams of my back
And I let you—I
                      let it fever its way around stringy tethers,
       up to the oven of blood in my head
                                                        whil­e you lick your lips (the moon pours out)
and I do not watch this
                                 because now I cannot even trample
         across floors of lemongrass  
                                or brace the line of my jaw for a tender fist.
The earth simply throws a plump tomato at my chest
                                               smirks simmering in its oceans  
                           but all I can do is fall there
                                                lay near  
                                                         ­   lose years
                                                                ­      expire here—
(the sodden match)
(the hot scoop of iced cream)
                               while the froth of my heart grows cold and colder.

So I can’t even smash your head                   (a skull I love)
                        into the wooden wall until it is as  
                                                            ­   soft as a boiled pomegranate.
          For my own flesh is a puddle of sputters on the kitchen table
                                                 ready for you to eat *(dine, my darling, dine!)