who is in charge
of this hellhole
that they have decided
it's ok
for me to
have fire?

clearly the answer
is no one
or i wouldn't be
wielding
fire and chocolate
and wine and music and pens
and this insane body of mine...

i mean don't you people
realize what i can
*do with this ****???

For the same reasons that I stay hungry
for dinner and tired for bed, I keep my
heart a little lonely for poetry; that way,
I can imagine your weathered hands against
my pale thighs as clinging starfish – my
fingernails, bleached cockleshells washed up
on the barely evening beach of your back.

I remember you like accidental
photographs: sun flare, skin,
the tops of trees. Knees. Your shirt-
sleeves in a dove grey breeze. (I arrange
the photos like a slow striptease.)

My mother washed potatoes
one by one while my father
went carousing with his
favorite gun; I dragged sticks
through dusty gravel while
I watched it all unravel,
wondering what to make of
such an ugly thing as love.

Slow
motion -           one side
                          then
                             ­                                  -another
pull the blanket
        over
                     my
                                   head
-look-
                     we're in a tent
                     our tent.
No one else can come in.
Your fingers go all the way
          down
                            my
           ­                             spine
                            ­             then
                            back
                   up.