Since our lives were complicated
By outside reason
Our house has been loud with voices
We pulled the bits out of our mouths
And now we will never put them back
And our house has never been quiet
And our house has never been neat
A scream has always followed a scream
Like the roll of waves and the sea is never still
But for the first time in years
I sit alone on the swept floor
Of a silent room
And the cold winter wind rushes through our house
Through windows flung open to let in more breathable air
But it makes me think only of my warm spot halfway up the stairs
That I was too afraid to go to when I heard the cold coming
Now a scream echoes without a scream
And my heat is lost to a room
With nothing to hold it

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 want to stumble into you
Like the locked door at the end of the hallway
The one with the sign that doesn’t say
DO NOT ENTER
As much as it says
I ****** DARE YOU

And I dare
I dare to devour your deviance
Like a grungy punk rocker on a microphone

Head shake tongue wag cartoon coyote horn howl

What?
I have no discretion
Leave the lights on
I want us both to see why we taste so bad

I mean
Let’s pound like pistons
Until the oil dries up
And our engines seize

I have nowhere to go

I do not want to go home tonight
I want to sloppy seconds myself
Before passing out
With my head in the crook of your neck

Even drenched in sweat
You smell so sweet

I want to kiss you
I want to taste your body’s attempt
To cool what I do to you

I want to heat you up again

I bought the clapper and unplugged everything else
Just so you could tell me to ******* like a strobe light

Well
Gorgeous
Now I can

Come place your lips on my throat
And I will sing for you

You are so much more beautiful than I could ever be
Let me know what that feels like
By wanting me back

This gentle ache
Of dancing
And drying joints

I wonder if you’ll still be this **** when you’re old

I ask because I have lost any desire for grace

I have fallen from it

And want to stumble into you like a locked door

Fumble for the house keys

Might actually make it inside

If you took your hands off me

Anna and I leave Jesus on the cross, on the jumbotron.
The blood pooled. The blood cooled. The bloodbath cleansed the flock.
I watch Anna from the passenger seat.
She's silent and salvation.
Rain falls in diamonds on the windshield,
bouquets of streetlights turn the transparents
to rubies, to emeralds.
She turns off the headlights.
Running half-blind on abandoned interstate,
Anna's silent, Anna's grace, Anna's forgiveness.
No more lamps overhead.
No more exits to be found.
Only Anna and I at peace in the void.