My best friends sit on the couch and watch The Notebook.
I lie on the leather recliner and watch the clock.
In two hours the movie will end, in three hours
I’ll have an excuse to leave without seeming antisocial.
-
Another Night
-
Reciprocation
A beggar prostrate at her feet,
spine pinned by the heel, crushed
beneath her weight. A morsel of mercy?
She denies me a crumb.
A minute, a word, a breath, all beyond
her tightening budget, shrewd
even in the growing depression.
Each smile, touch, caress guarded
by airtight hands and barred lips.Beyond the white picket fence
is a world I no longer know.
Chained to her porch with a leash
around my neck knotted with a noose,
the spine snaps whenever I stray.
Forever in purgatory, my sentence
for my sin. I listened to the serpent.
I swallowed her apple.
She swallowed me whole. -
Beyond Her Breasts
Peer pressure pushed my eyes past her breasts-
perfect pillowy jovial planets, firstborn twins of Aphrodite-
beyond the clouds to her face, a foreign place, the wilderness
of outer space. Deprived of sound, I drowned in noise
I never heard on the hills below. Soft serenity I found,
then forfeit for a siren’s song, remastered beyond truth
by naivety now lost, muffled by the white noise that never stops
once the dam’s unlocked. Eden plummets beneath the deluge
of the dead. Even the fruit lost its flavor. To a new home I flee,
snugly safe in the cave of her sister. Such warmth and security. -
I Remembered
You wanted them that night
the mist ravished your hands,
pierced creamy silk into ivory.
No more than a movie ticket,
no less than essential next time
we walk the winter downtown nights.
Shield for your hands, symbolic of mine.
The cold won’t relent. Neither will I. -
Her Natural Scent
The smell of her skin exposed beneath layers
of vanilla-sprinkled floral fragrances was nature:
the smell of sapling trees after a humble shower,
grass freshly-snipped, still surrounded by the trimmings.
Nature’s nubile nymph given flesh, scent, stench
obscene to a nose groomed by doves and Ireland,
Klein and Armani, chocolate scents from artificial ingredients.
The fig leaves fell from the truth that stole her beauty-
her mouth, her breasts, her candy-coated scent-
and cursed her forever a primate, a beast, an ape beneath.
In a world uncorrupted by a new brand of Eve named Britney,
she might be named Beauty rather than just another monkey. -
Her New Boyfriend
One step into the pizzeria was enough to singe my face
with their chemistry, its stench his body spray,
its sight dyed with highlights too bright to be sincere,
its noise his proclamations of princely ambitions.
I know not his name, his age, his occupation, his history,
his turn-ons, his turn-offs, but intimately know his type, his motive,
his alibi, his premeditation, his plan for the night she lies down
her doors unlocked, her lights off, her alarms shut down,
each wire snipped with his tongue, pinched by fingers
plowed into her shoulders, nearly wrapped around her neck.Two hours he plays his con, two hours I play a rock,
subservient to social graces, shy except to smile
as he drops another roofie into her ear, syllables swallowed
without digestion, without bite. Too famished by one week
without a man, she drowns the hangover with another drink
bliss of where she’ll vomit next time she falls off the peak,
naive of the mortgage she accumulates, naive of who pays.
First a hand, then an arm, then two legs, then a heart
she mistook for a chew toy for that bitch she calls a sister.
From a friend cut to a donor with only a head left to pawn. -
Like a Brother
“A brother,” she calls me. I nod
and show her my bluff. “Yes,
I see you as a sister,” I say.
“I’m happy for you. For Nick.
Such a perfect couple!
Romeo and Juliet! Antony and Cleopatra!
Destined to enjoy centuries together.”
All technique Professor Lynch gave his drama class,
every syllable I give to this performance
in this Roman colosseum, playing dead,
praying that the lion, its depraved gut
deprived of meat for over two decades,
won’t snap the rusty chain and pounce
this girl with a frightening roar: “You’re like a sister
and I’m fiending with incestuous cravings!”A beast can’t win this. Only a serpent.
-
Treasure
I thank you for staying over.
I thank you for your unobservance.
Your forgetfulness has given me my greatest joy – so far.
Beneath the small tan stitch of fabric
is an even tinier morsel – white gold.
A discovery worthy of celebration – for a few hours.
Alone, it’s nothing special – I’ve seen it all before,
but this one is priceless in sentiment.
A spike in value with your autograph –
the memories stained on it,
its inherent intimacy with you.
This is more than cotton.
It fleshes out the fantasies,
gives them touch, sight, smell,
refreshes old games with new possibilities –
all of which I’ll explore in the next 6 hours.
It’s Saturday – I’m home all day – I won’t see you anyway.
I’ll return them tomorrow at church. -
All You Are
No longer do I see the girl I loved.
No longer do I see the blessed virgin
whose gravity crushed serpentine heads, weighed
on hearts adrift in clouds. I only see
a little girl in habit hoping men
indulge her famished soul with attention.
I see not an ocean bubbling with life
as wise as dolphins, hues as wide as whales,
waves white as the envious nimbi above.
I dipped my head beneath and saw nothing
but sand. Small, flat, still pieces of pebbles.
The light tricked me with my own reflection.
I glimpse no garden needing guard by swords
aflamed. Beyond the gates are plains as far
as birds can fly, eyes see, man ventures. Grass
is barely green, those trails plowed by boyfriends
of old who left your hills white and eyes blue.
No seed escaped the abortionist’s touch.
Every flower, each tree, every apple
was poached from passerbys. Nothing’s your own.
Except your breasts. Those glorious breasts! Heaven-
ly moons of Jupiter, celestial beings
grabbing me with gravity of Uranus,
casting my words, my breath out to Pluto.
No night ends without choking, without dying
at the mere thought of the twin babels. That
is all I see. But that is enough for me.