Sanitary

you clutch up
your skirt from the floor
like a fingernail I have trimmed:
it will grow up about
you again,
your skin shall be
defenced again.

the darkness beneath your breasts has afforded me security,
I have slumbered under
their dark girth.

this fabric though
is warmed by your body,
it is not your body.
once I would have asked you
don’t please,
but if you remain bare I know
it will be like
a man
and
wife brushing teeth
in a windowless bathroom,

two standing
naked without speech.

Tart (revised)

the Radio blows
at the small succulent hairs
on the back of my hand.
and this is you.

you stir
the radiant Blood
beneath, it swims with you
and gnashes me jagged,
can you feel my cudgelgirthed lips
against your Jaw
hardtenderlover
brute?

and

in brief,
you don
your soles
and leave

these small sumptuous hairs
dry with breath.

.

Capitulate

evening has
befallen
me
and you,

bristling, thicklike as
the muttering black beards
of nomads
loping slowly west,
gaunt with cold.

evening having befallen,
the air is
purple with no sound,
only your sniffling
and the chuff
of black beards
closing.

I have left you
out the walls;
this place will not burn
tonight.

the air where you stand
is purple,
and darker
than the rest.
get in your car,
please.

.

STOIC

ten
thou
sand
years
I have swooned
in a ragged, portentous land,
buying coffee at eleven
with you while knowing
you’d kiss me if I’d let you.

.

MINISTERS of PROPAGANDA

I was led to believe
as a child
that my parents
loved each other.

TART

the Radio blows
at the small succulent hairs
on the back of my hand.
and this is you.

and thus you stir
the radiant Blood
beneath, it swims with you
and gnashes me jagged;
I will clutch you that
brutally.

my Teeth are anxious.