Come
so fast
the bugs
are
in
my teeth

but not today.





The Question

At twelve I wondered: "Am I passionate?"
for passion was the word
that sure did occupy
a lot of time. If my mind had been a taxi cab
then twelve would've certainly run the meter
on trips to find the 'passionate' in me;
movies, cheap pulp fiction
showed
a fondness for the term-

Dick and Liz
had it.

The characters in Peyton Place
had scads of passionate throbbings, meltings,
looks and stolen touches that just tantalized
a twelve year old in double A cups
that were
hand-me-downs
from a cousin who'd outgrown the things
when she was barely ten.
I had a fierce desire
to be considered
passionate, at least until the flesh filled
what the kleenex did in case someone
should try to get to
second base.
I'd let him. Yes, I would.

Nights, I'd kiss my hand

imagine that the softest lips
were there beneath the thumb- the one
that rowed the
man in the boat; rowed in sweaty
diligence
until I was eighteen, when finally,
he shot right down the rapids, over the falls
and washed upon the strangest shore of longed-for passion.
A private beach, to which I've had unlimited
access
since.





Peeling The Poem

Words are pain
pulled in strips
like skin
off of the body.

I pull this heartache,
this severance,
this child,
this chill in bloody pieces-
align
and sign my name.

I feel the loss then.
The parts
that used to be mine alone
hung out to dry,
poem-jerky in the wind.
Hopeful that discerning eyes
will see them as they are-
pieces of my hide,
my mind,
the road curled out behind
that blistered me
in walking.

All I ask is:
won't you lend
your heart a while
to translate
just as priests
would limn the livers
of the sacrificed?
Let me scar
before I tear again.





Protection From Harm

Lock the doors;
swallow
all the keys. Keep the wolves outside
to circle other camps.
Pull
your rosary
through your fingers
and if they ever do get somehow
close
enough-

you've got a handy
slow,
garrote.





The Rapture

The silence was complete,
the heat gone, the sun dim.
The angel with the sword
had kept his word,
had cleaved the world
in twain,
the rain
like razored pellets fell down
melting, shot from clouds, red and rubicund
and toothed; eating at the moon.
Layering the sun with grief, that thief,
Time,
had ended for us all, there was no sound.
No singling out of lambs
too good to die. There were no
cherubim
that I could see.
And Jesus, where was He
in these high, Hosannah-ed moments
when we prayed to disappear? He'd never made it seem
so bloody final, or so soundless, left here
stewing in our sins.
A lake of fire
at least,
would crackle,
mi amigos.





Redlight

The car ticked.
Catalytic converter
clicked clock sounds. Redlight glared
in gasping haze, eighty-degree May
and Bach blared
from speakers.
Sweatstreams
tickled down my a back. Attacked
by heat, I wondered if the car, or I,
would make it through the summer. Head stuffed
with traffic thoughts.

The girl stood waiting for a bus.
Sleeveless dress hung limp
upon the skeleton
parading as a girl. Burl of elbow,
poke of knee,
brittle in the heat; dry as ash,
as flaked as rust.
Her hair hung spider-like and fine, but still
a brave attempt at style. Her seafoam-green accessories
all screamed that she had tried to be what movies
said she could,
but falling short, she never smiled.
She starved
and stared.

A blind man came along,
put his foot
in the abyss.
Tapped his cane against the street
in foregone agreement
with the world that things would turn out
right.
I looked back
at the sliver of girl, who wore her marrow showing, dying,
she was dying in the heat.
I wanted to
beat at her brittle stance I saw as demand
that something 'be', and tell her,
"Look at him. There's more
than what we see"
and say to
both of us: "what you're hearing,
what you're you're feeling, is alright: a car
gets old, a sun
burns gases,
throwing heat, and sweetie,
flesh is all we've got. Now thrust that foot out
where the air is scary.
Both of us, trust and tap."





Revelation

When I lay down all pretense, shuck the junk
and barefoot, walk in wonder in my honest skin,
I come to pools
like glass and bend to drink
the truth from my own face.
There is a smile,
small,
but sure as pound of heart
against my ribs
that I will be the last one out,
the last to see the light
before the dark drops.

That smile

had better be there
when it comes.





Secret Weapon

Each nipple
has radar so sensitive,
that it pulls the strings of the erect
thrust
below.

Women,
men-

are sometimes shy to tease
these buttons- never mind their power
to set
the
explosion
in
motion

but I have found
a tongue

-can
detonate a cannon
cum.





Sketch

Sketch from some old artist class
reproaches from the wall
and calls to mind the many hats
I've worn and blithely cast aside-
a 'dropped stitch' life.

Looking at the boy I'd caught
with skillful eyes my fingers had
is sad but thrilling still,
making muscle out of chalk.

This peerless sketch abides,
is all I've saved
from fourteen weeks
of tried Cassatt.
Olive green construction paper
fading into salmon
with an adolescent boy
in brazen thong
who comes alive
by simple line.

Talent
is a solar flare.
And life is much eclipsed
by moons of daily.





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