This is Here

Girls killing time in bathrooms
gussing up like Ethel Rosenberg

“You looking for an informed communist,
former Russia?”

They’ll beckon
and those that get the reference
but are offended anyway and don’t laugh with

are the people worth knowing

but the information they’re peddling has no back alley dealing
of equal value

so we’re forced to cut our expectations short a little
to squeeze some action into a developing cold war. 

So you’re in a car
and across the median is an ambulance
and you don’t have to stop because you’re on the far right lane
and they’re still a stoplight away on the other side anyway
But all the other cars are peeling away like wilting petals
of flowers in a vase you already own, given by someone who’s sympathetic
and you can’t remember the sound of a siren
So you strain your eyes at the flashing lights in the middle of the daylight
and wait for the Doppler effect to take effect
and wait to remind yourself that a week ago you would only hear sirens
and never see them
But you never forgot what an ambulance looked like,
then. 

These are the hands that molded Play-Doh snakes on tiled floors of now remodeled homes 

These are the hands that learned to write in cursive with pencils that had an elementary school name printed on the side

These are the hands that braided a best friend’s hair during the science class that showed a documentary on the colonies of insects

These are the hands that typed essays on an unwarranted laptop gift, given out of guilt for uprooting their lives to start a-new

These are the hands that discovered prurient means of release by accident when every other faucet of their being was fulfilled

These are the hands that regretted the discovery of another’s libido after the lingering smell wouldn’t wash off for three days

These are the hands that looked like a child’s, touching his face with libertine unexpectedness and jocund, yet lonely amusement

These are the hands that apparently haven’t grown, inconsistent with the body they synecdoche for.　

With a knife’s handle nestled in his palm like a stem in an apple,
he began to chuck out pieces of my spine
Each individual vertebra
carved to resemble a totem pole
with totems of his choosing
And my suggestion
when his creativity faltered

“God is not a clock maker,”
He was up to my thoracic 4th
“He is an architect savant 
who designed by candle light-

I am the electrician,
plumber,
restorer

I am rewrapping your spinal cord
to include grooves for my fingers

And you are letting me
though I’ve rendered you temporarily paralyzed.

I will rendered you paralyzed,
later on.” 

Is it the soul that’s the gate keeper of judgement?

When you lie about age,
you’re perverting the passage of time,
not the sacred act of truth

When you finally fess up
shame on the revolutions. 　 

I bought 7 mattresses
and 7 sheets
7 Bedframes
and 14 pillows all the same

Iron-wrought, oak, contemporary, posts
Striped, plain, Egyptian, silk
and placed the goose-downs on top

I only have to make each bed once,
lay in it once
and if I glutton for more in a singular week,
I have to make more. 

Love is the white feathers on the small of a pigeon’s back
whose long tail is missing quite a few
because the multitude of long feathers
detracted from their uniquely propositioned characteristic

Love is the white feathers on the small of a pigeon’s back
whose shedding weight for the summer
to fly over the happy again
and scourge for food

Love is the white feathers on the small of a pigeon’s back
who’s missing a foot, cauterized and bandaged
with gum, walking proficiently with a peg leg
but not quite the same

Love is the white feathers on the small of a pigeon’s back
whose other feathers are dark
opal and deserted waters blue
prepared to hide all of its own travels

Love is the white feathers on the small of a pigeon’s back
in the perfect position to stay clean, to stay in tact
drawing the eye in peculiar wonderment
How can a diseased bird keep so pristine? 

“Her hair
parted
like the waves
betwixt bow of the boat,
Bowing to show reverence”

and other similes,
waxing romantic language

To seduce you

To seduce himself, first
though,
Like the captain breaking the wine bottle on his own man-made vessel. 

Blind woman
looking at me looking at me
looking at me

No she’s not

But her body’s positioned toward me,
I’m not breathing
seeing　 me
I’m not breathing

Man intervenes

she ignores my presence,
I dream about her. 

White shirt, orange panties, pink bra

You tame an octopus when you taunt me
two tentacles stroking yours,
six recoiled into myself
Caressing, itching, fidgeting, raking

and sticking to myself with suction cups the size of pocket watches
Time gels by like the insides of a level,
You create equilibrium when you chat with me

telling me how you feel, what you want,
what you don’t
And I just smile, indifferently
You are not an octopus or a balance,
you are a person with opinions

and a judgement that will soon lead you away.