poetry

Spaces Between

The small of your back

delicate as tulip tip

I grind against you.

The squeals you make, 

octaves heavy with vibration

the poetry of your orgasms

how they ripple,

wave upon

wave upon

wave

You surf.

(the crest never ends.)

You are the very definition of fascination.

Who are you? 

You ask me. I ask you.

It is mutual.

This disbelief in ourselves.

I miss you. Your chaotic swirl.

Hurricane. Tornado. I call you these names and you agree.

It makes your attention all the more precious. 

I live for the spaces between our sex.

When sex might translate to partnership,

perhaps even domesticity (that’s dangerous)

Casual. No pressure. Figuring out my dating goals.

You don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Okay.

Okay?

Our sex transforms our very notion of relationship. Shakes the usual.

I bought a copy of The Ethical Slut. 

I don’t want to give this up. It’s too good.

It is the best.

Yes.

Best. Sex. Ever.

But? But what about those moments when I watch you sleep?

When I trace your lips with my fingertips?

When I hug you tight upon arrival?

How I relish sitting in bed playing Wordscapes together.

This too is intimacy.

These moments carve the edge of possibility.

Hopeful.

What would you do if you saw me looking at you as you slept? 

After I fucked you (your first time)

you asked if you could lay on top of me to sleep and, inside,

rushes of want flooded as I said

“yes.”

I find your moments of vulnerability intoxicating.

I like being drunk off you.

We don’t want labels now.

Love is not a label.

A feeling in motion, 

action.

I want to love you and fear it.

There’s a little bit of love

In every piece of Lego offered

In every load of laundry done

When do crumbs make a full meal?

In this moment, as I think of you,

I want to say I love you.

I love you.

I love you?

There’s no space there.

There at your place.

There in your rush of thoughts.

Where do I fit? Where do I fit?

Do I fit? (if you have to ask...)

My sweet sweet lover.

I don’t know. I love you?

Or I love our journey?

The infinite maps of our bodies

like explorers on uncharted planets.

It’s otherworldly. You used those words.

Astroboy. Astrogirl.

I want the Universe in you as I

honor the sovereign planets of ourselves.

I’m having difficulty distinguishing where the planets end and

the Universe begins.

This is the wrong equation!

What if we are making our own Universe?

(This metaphor is running away from me…)

Lover. Lover. Lover.

I want to taste you.

Now. 

Soft skin. Hairless. Smooth. Sweet. Sour.

We put everything in our mouths.

The whole of you.

The holes of you. 

I like that I’ve changed that about you.

That you want to know your own taste.

Do you trust me now when I say you taste sweetly sour?

I can barely stand to think of this without

the corners of my lips

turning up.

This has no end yet.

The poem? 

Or the relationship?

Both.

For now, the poem now.

For now.

The Full Weight

A week or so after the funeral

I opened my Dad’s bureau to borrow

one of his shirts, as was my habit.

The Giants jersey held to my chest,

a brief inhale to catch any trace of his smell.

There was none.

The jersey took on a soft shape

as my eyes blurred.

I held the jersey to my face.

The scent of Tide greeted me

like a middle finger.

One blink.

The jersey got wet.

A paralyzing pause took hold,

pregnant with the realization that he would never

ask for it back.

I close the bureau

and walk out the bedroom,

jersey crumpled in hand.

Undivided Tenderness

(after Robert Bly’s For My Son, Noah, Ten Years Old)

Could a day go by with undivided tenderness?

Where you are, without pause, like the lamb in my bed?

Worshipping every crevice, curve and kiss

Words like “goddess” and “perfect” thrown to the wind

Like wedding rice – without form or fear.

O what I would give for a day like this

            You:

                        Kind, amorous, sensitive

As if the lamb ate the wolf, and it rests

Satisfied in the absolute Darwinian impossibility of it,

of your undivided tenderness.

This.

            This is not the reality.

The wolf always eats the lamb.

It is its nature.

This.

            This you have tattooed on your upper left arm, as if (and if)

            the words are not enough.

Yes. There are the words:

            Niggers. Moon crickets. Gooks. Spics.

Those words with laughter and smiling eyes are

Like needles in a pincushion. Its purpose, the pincushion, is to retain the stabs—

hold them in, keep them safe

from pricking others.

But what about the fucking pincushion?!

It takes it and takes it until all the small holes cause the fabric

to weaken and unravel.

In the long run, the pincushion, like the lamb, will be

destroyed by nature of its very existence.

So go ahead and write poetry that will,

Like most of your words, provoke belittlement.

Keep the very special poems, like those dreams of undivided tenderness—

hidden, a lamb in shelter, not a wolf in sight.

Yes.

Keep those dreams woven tight,

tighter than the strongest pincushion,

with the fear of unraveling.

Facelift

Taut, simple dry with little scars

I am beautiful.

Twitching slow twitch upward spasmodic turn

I am smiling.

Made in China dew moisturizer-enhanced

I am glowing.

Eyebrows static nowhere to go, can’t go

I am feeling

                        anything

And nothing

Outside too much pain within.

Keep it there, outside: I’m beautiful dammit.

I am perfectly falling apart.

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