if you open my lips
with your lips and close
them with your fist
and i forget
how to thread a needle
will you stitch my
ragdoll body back together
like a patchwork quilt of skin and
bone
china will you
bury the pieces when they
break

so you die.
in medias res (every story starts
in the middle) when
you awake from unsettling
dreams to find yourself transformed in your bed into
this city—
subway tunnels bursting with the hello(hello((hello(((hello))) of small children
and ***** words spraypainted by *****
minds onto *****
boxcars sitting like greyhounds
retired from racing and
awaiting the
slaughter—it will all
be beautiful later.

and when blinding light races
toward you
(every story ends
in the middle)

sometimes I find
poems by accident:
I trip over them in the shower or at the bottom
of the stairs and I
apologize for my misconduct but
what the **** were they doing there Im not
supposed to be inspired
by yearsold graffiti or
words scratched into
bathroom stalls or
in the dulcet tones
of the woman on the other end of the
payphone that ate up my dollar fifty
stop ******* the sleep out
of my eyes scratching at
the scrabbleplaying part of my mind that
wants to steal other people’s words and
dress them with the playclothes of
my fiveyearold daughter
why the **** is it
that when I see strangers at the coffeeshop I can’t
just let them be strangers anymore

can’t continue
(my love)
to sit on this granitecold floor without
you And so on and so forth until
lips     on lips on apples of
cheeks. Eyelashes.
harpsichord tones of throat against fingers against
bloodredblue;
  jugular pulse of
   barestripped trees

in the morning stale coffee and
cigarettes and the
view from
our window:

flip/switch.

the dark runs to corners:
unswept cobwebs, unmarked
graves of
lacewings.

mirror, mirror.

tessellate:
you
me
you
kaleidoscopic in the seven years’
worth of bad luck.

you come here with new eyes and
brand-new dockers. i
mend the broken siding in my mind’s eye.
prune the wisteria and uproot
ivy in handfuls.

i unconsciously check for
onion peel
underneath the kitchen sink.

the pantry
where one of the pups died.
the disappointment of eyes
bloodshot
but dry.

perhaps *******
are unaware of themselves
until they blossom at the touch of
the cold
or
hungry hands
mapping
the topography of skin. perhaps
they wait
for lips and ivory teeth
to explain every pregnant
pause in your touch;
each time we undress our bodies
are new again.
we emerge
from the cocoon of bedlinens
coloured and crumpled and
left to dry in the sun.

i brush the popcorn off my jacket.
outside the theater where they show
fassbinder films
i dig for spare change in my pocket
for the homeless man on the corner of
seventeenth and arbor.

heard through the psychobabble
as he extends his hand:
“get a girlfriend
get a job
stay warm”

the things we do to be human.

The aroma of coconut milk
permeating the frost
of the windshield.

Vague scent of cigarettes and Febreze
in your hair.
Your teeth between my thighs.

Your tongue
circling mine
like two hyenas
scavenging .

You taste like
the tea you drank
half an hour ago.

Neutral
This car has been hit before.

I am frightened by your
automatic seatbelts.

The rusty
red earth
created
beneath your feet
is all you have to your name.

Angel laugh
(bells)
Broken lyre strings lining the floor like
carpet

Never look
down.

Don't hide
your scarred knees
from the world
don't cage your beating heart
with your ivory ribs

But rather
bare yourself
to the unforgiving universe

Try until your fingers bleed
and your hair grows silver with the wind
be thankful for every breath that fills your gasping lungs
and sing to the wind that you are alive
with the song still in you.
The ridges of your lips
tell stories of women
gained and lost
like pounds
or wooden pencils
from grade school

Behind a thicket of eyelashes
(downcast)
you weep
and laugh
with the same pair of bright eyes.

Pearl smile
(glint in the sunlight)
safe in the lines of your eyes.

Crane your pale neck
like a swan;
watch the cliff
burst open with sparrows and
rock doves.

Hands.
(tactile)
In your mind the song of color
shower water and
a tri-tone
thick as the sound of thighs upon thighs
helium-light
sorrow-heavy

Words.
The way you say anything
and nothing
clean-cut by the shears of your tongue
at the end of the rope.

Song.
Polyphony of your voice
and the sound of the storm
as you stand
arms outstretched
rain-soaked and cold
with bright glass eyes
and a warm heart
the storm crescendos
with the rise and fall of your hands
rain falling like cigarette smoke
on your upturned face
You taste on your tongue
yourself
passion and salt
slightly sweetened
by cologne
and the grainy bitterness
of skin

Soul.
This vase full of tears
like your breakable soul
(tastes like wildflowers and rain)
this lace-feathered honey hair
perfection contained in one white body
in one frosted-glass soul.

Hellenic
Flesh and marrow
Raphaelite form
painted into life.

Honey hair
slipping through the vees between my fingers like
sand
conch-white skin
You blind me
like the noonday sun.
Enveloping—
body wrapped in body—
ocean and sky
meet
at the horizon.

Peel my skin from me
like an orange.
Apple.

Heal me
with hands upon thighs
Stitch my ragdoll body together with the sutures of your kisses
Stuck
by the glue of lips

Raise me like Lazarus
from the valley of death
from the orchard in Eden and the shame of skin

Reupholster me
like a dinette chair.

Vivid as the Sistine Chapel
your hand
outs t r e t c h e d
toward God

I find you in
pumpkin seeds
scattered
like tears
on the floor of my car.
They were yours.

You weigh
three hundred and twenty-six pounds
two hundred and twenty of them
from the used-up
hot air
of other people’s mouths.

These hands
give voices to the voiceless
the murmurs of old ghosts in
mahogany mansions

These hands
slide up the thighs of olive-skinned women

From their hanging place above your
upturned face
the stars whisper their blessings
into the ebony
velvet night.

Find meaning
bleeding from
your smoker’s cough
ripping through your throat like
honey and citrus
and
my tongue in the winter.

Feathered hair falling
Across downcast eyes; take in
forms of pear-shaped girls.

Stretch this pale body
Like a cat. On the stage (yours)
Girls hover like birds.

Do you belong here?
Back behind the black curtains
Closed doors and thick ropes?

**** as a newborn
Flat, inside-out and exposed
Beige hair made of sand

Close-holding muscled
Arms—hold this hourglass waist
To legs arms body—

Lips of dark coral
Flush from the snow (white) outside
Taste it on your tongue

Start with a picture.
Any one will do.
Names rattled off, like
Stars, constellations—
Screamed into silence.

Blink. Close your eyes; imagine
Red ribbons and blood floating
Through frigid air, in the snow.
See this tall, dark, frail body
Consumed by snowflakes and cold
Laugh like a choir in the
Middle of the stage (bright light)

Start with lips. Eyes, nose.
Start with clavicle
Breastbone and a thigh.
Start with oxygen
End with a human.

Voice resounding in my head
(timpani)
Melodyharmony
everythinginbetween
harmonymelody

I­n the bloom of your
sprite-like youth.

You were His first creation
Women constructed from your broken ribs
and all else from dust
as you shall be.

Bodies of cracked red earth and
Sunshine
Of absent goodnight kisses
and cigarettes.

Skin to skin
Sweat to sweat
(whose is whose)

You
made of
Brittle bones rattling through your sighs
Pulsing through the sinews of your legs
hidden beneath thin skin
pale
beating, feeble heart


Who can tell from my lying eyes
behind the blackandwhite bandanna
(peekaboo)
Of a folded
diaphanous paper moon
amid a field of stars.

Freckles
comma
made of sinuous threads
Between your thighs

What is a body
But bread and wine
question mark
craning like a swan apostrophe s neck

Is love supposed to happen like this
colon
With no one watching
Kneeling before the queen
Tying your shoe

Is love supposed to happen like
Blood in the park
red earth
semicolon
Like hearts pounding in
rooms with no mirrors

We start with the physics
period
The graceful art of movement
Up down in around
Blacklights
Punctuated
by sound

father
forgive me
for i have sinned.

i have
carried
in myself
passion and
thorns and
christ i have carried
fear pain love loathing
i have (mis)carried
justice and
children
who will never see the light
of day

father forgive me
for my hair loves my neck as my skin loves my bones
my thighs are scarred and my wrists
bleed
for someone else
my lips and
my crescent *******
are swollen with kisses
from lips that hold me together
forgive me for my scarlet blood
(it tastes like lincoln copper on my tongue)
forgive me for
my renaissance form
bursting from the sea
my limbs inter
twined with tree branches
armslegs like snakes

father
forgive me
for my body is broken
but my soul
pulses with
lovelight and blessings

my father
my child
do you forgive me?

moonwhite skin explodes into
blueblack bruises on your thighs
(chainsent)
like the words of your mother as she
consoled crying you in your crib:

she will always
know

the daughters
were not are not will never be
careful
virgincolored and apathetic
albatrosses scream overhead as you
take her paperpale hand (too thin);
and when
your fingers lace
your bluebird heart flies to your knees
and your butterfly soul flutters to your
stomach:

you will always
know.
the hopekill of your
mirrorcracked reflection
you in fragments
of
you mirror youmirroryou
knucklebleed flows onto the parqueted
wooden floor
where the silver glass
glints at you like
her skin in the moonlight.

and so tomorrow
if you are
still a
live
if tomorrow
when the sun sets west
if tomorrow when you open the gates
there are no wives
for the husbands waiting in line
if tomorrow you send her
a telegram:
(i will still be in brooklyn this week stop
and i love you
stop)

she will never
know

and the thunder
will bellow overhead as the albatrosses land
on the sweet, drunkwet pavement

chainfall.

alessandro
botticelli said
let there be venus
(said
let there be you.)

you
running your hands down your own curves
blind;
the mirrors are all broken here.

it doesn’t matter
if you want this.
i want this
dotted i
(crossed t)
wants this

****
is this, for instance.
a pear:
bruised
muscled like
holy breaststhighs
completely inmoving
(outmoving)
breathe—
celebrate
the words
going upward to the sky and the
strawberry-red hair cascading down
it hungers
(like you)
to touch my back
gently
curl around my shoulders like your cold fingers in January

**** not
skeletal.

let there be
me.

let there be—here is where
the words stop mattering to me—
let there be caramelchocolate skin of sunlit honey tint
melting into itself on the wooden floor
(we all
scream
for ice cream)

titian and
anadyomene me
wringing long wet
raven hair
my legs are covered in salt
sand
once the sea goes dry.

almond eyes
upturned
(angular)

marvel at your own geometry.

lips of salome
drawn upward into a not-yet-smile
(cherubic)

to the women who give their thin
pale bodies
to muscular men with perfect
arms to hold them down:
i am for you.

i
with my
******* that blossom at your winter touch
my thighs
scarred by ivory teeth—no.
i
with
******* in full bloom
(orchids)
thighs sculpted by
God himself
don’t you want to make love to me?
doesn’t the world
want to make
love?


love that tastes
more metallic than the blood behind my lips
don’t you want to bite it out?
taste the sweetness behind them?
run your hands over
the elysian fields of my thighs
and the valley between them
don’t you want
my legs slung over your shoulders
don’t you want
your tongue
on my vast skin
sweat made of sugar
and salt.
(bittersweet)

you want
lips crashed against yours like
w
a ves
eyelashes sweeping your cheeks
you want
don’t you want
me
**** with nothing to cover me but my
blanket of raven hair
for immodesty’s sake!

perhaps
i am (is) small.

but
the mirrors are all broke}n here

the ****** on fifth street
don’t ask you to buy whiskey;
they take it from you.

there are too many
words—lascivious, lewd, *****—
used to describe them.

and too many names—
**** ***** harlot ***** *****—
used to deride them.

you want one tonight
someone who’ll snort ketamine
whose laugh sounds like bells.

someone to talk to
for thirty bucks an hour;
the best ones come cheap.

the best ones come drunk
(when they’re not doing molly)
and dance in the street.

the best ones wear rouge
that glows under streetlights and
rubs off on your lips.

the best ones **** quick
and leave quicker—out through the
back door, and lights out.

this late in the afternoon
my tongue
circles itself
searching
for red velvet cake
earl grey
with
devonshire cream and scones
showing more concern for
spilled milk than spilled
blood
i know why
the mona lisa smiles
folds her hands over each
other
just so
(furtive)
i have met caged birds
and heard their songs
they are
not
alone.