The impact of earth—grass growing where it shouldn’t,
people talking about us as if they know,—it
wouldn’t flood into my opened heart. Infected
by elements of dark humor, sleet, and age—no matter
how temporary, I wouldn’t inflict this madness
on the devil herself.
To want to be
something special in your memory,
—Recognition—to be there when your mask sheds,
the crown slips, to hear the way you talk about me.
I lay trapped in my jar of imagination, stowed in the suitcase
under your bed, where you make love and drink and smoke…
This paranoia of hidden love, mutating out of foreign films
into my bones. Your unclothed beauty—so cool, so focused.
Sex has always been on the table. Consolation prize.
How can I blame you?
I lose interest in myself twice daily.