The October

your skin
like a pale pat of butter
glows by the sheer
and pretends
not to wait
for my battered knife.

you stand in the kitchen for two days
with bleeding joints;
two glasses of milk three quarters full,
with bubbles at the surface,
and a wet white smear
on the rim
where your lips
have been.

after a time you
leave things where they are,
lie on the couch
and clutch at a man for a while,
soaping away
your body’s
acrid filament.

after his chlorides
your bulbs, burnished, peachlike glow.
you feel voluptuous and desirable,
if not healthy, again.
you pour the milk away,
being rubbery
and bad,
and wash the glasses
with hands
seeming
to grow old
in the water.

Slit Wrist

you set the hot skillets
down
and look at me
as if
a good meal and
your sweet brown smile
could cull
from me the parts
which do not answer
the egalitarian trumpet
of love.

I scrub the plates
all the while your frothy
devoted breath
on the back of my neck
until I rush
to the porch

and lean on the rail
thinking of other lovers for a while.
night rises in
a multitude of white roundnesses,
but I know
I owe you too much
to really love
you now.

Harvest Chaff

you were by
the silos, which were full of rice,
that year.

it took you a long time to talk, like always,
you kept rubbing your eyes
and elbows
while I stared busily
at something else like a man
waiting for his wife
to pick a purse.

I rolled soggy pocket lint
between my fingers until
you left.
your green corolla fled between
the rice ponds’ silver guts.

I figured I’d pick up the truck
tomorrow,
and got back that night
shiny and mosquito-bitten,
my breath gaspy
and bright.