Sunday, February 21, 2010

oh my

can't stand the rain

imagining bone
straining against flesh
when i touch
my own cheek:

where
did i go?

against my surface
used to lie
the safety of
the body, marshes
of yellow fat
fed by red blood,

but even this
recedes,
and i am left with
bone--
white
that would rather
splinter
than bend.

a new skin
that feels
translucent
as glass
overlays
my face.


copper lady
press yourself
closer.
the brush of your hair
brings to the skin of my neck
a vision
of a desert
with a river
cleaving it through.


the noises
that live in these walls--
echoes of
some shattered half hour--
etch sounds
perilously close to the vein
in a color
that looks like blood.

it dries on the cuff.

to remember
the way you wiped
your mouth
on your silk shirt.

tied down and split
like a fig
every sound
reddened as skin

i shake my head
on its thick and chalk-white stem

and nothing
comes loose.


if you
love me,
if you
hate me,
guide me
to that red river
and let
me
drink.

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