a sweet tooth for death.
There, at the end
of a smoke-stained
hallway, I discovered
the women,
bodies shelved
above the unworn
coats & flannel
button-ups.
Kitty. Crystal.
Heather. Ashley.
Vicky. Candy. Kim.
Feathered hair
& lip gloss,
pussies held open
by French manicures
they instructed me on
the body’s forbidden dialect,
the gospel of ecstasy,
how heat can ravage
from the inside out.
I’d practice in the closet.
Masturbated in the bathroom stall
at recess. Deep
in my sleeping bag
during slumber parties.
The Sunday school
cloakroom. Dentist’s
office. The backseat.
My middle finger,
a shriveled magician.
How else could I survive
the endless winter
of my childhood?
Hell-spangled girl
spitting teeth into the sink,
I’d trace the broken
landscape of my body
& find God
within myself.
the sandbox
for Lisa or Laurie
We held each other / in silence / mouth against mouth / blood & thunder scorching the grass / Behind the shed / I played the husband / brutish breadwinner / choking her flesh / in my troubled hands / pulling her head back / to lick / from neck to ear / in frenzied thrill / The kind of love / I learned from movies / & what light swamped the air / as I shoved my bald pelvis into hers / blood ripening into wolf brine / burning a girl-shaped hole in the clover? / Every afternoon I became a god reinventing sky / expert forger of the dry hump / I asked Who’s your daddy? before that was even a thing / Once the recess bell rang / I released her back / into the quiet unwild / to no-longer-mine / to fat white tubs of minty paste / & songs about Jesus / From across the room / I watched my bride / make eyes / with the real boys / & knew I could kill for her / drill a body down into the earth / boy in the Polaroid / a grisly figurine / The white horse of masculinity bucking wild on the inside / I bit my lip & did as I was told / After school / I wanted / to hold her hand / she always wanted a divorce / When the big kids followed me home / calling me / lesbo / homo / wetback / faggot / I held my chin out & challenged to fight them all / every time / & why not? / Might as well / we all knew / I would never / win / anything.
leverage
Before the burglar
raped my grandmother
he pushed her down
a flight of stairs.
Ankle turned, hip unhitched.
There was no getting up, no
hope for flight. She told me that while he
was on top of her, she stared up
at the clock from the kitchen floor.
Watched each minute crawl by
like a half-smashed bug,
imagining the school bus
emptying her sons into the yard.
Thought of the sandwiches
she had no time to make.
As the man pulled his pants up,
she noticed the tattoo on his
forearm. MOTHER framed
by a heart. My sons will be home
soon, she explained.
How many?
Five.
What she told me next
I could never understand,
not until I’d lived long enough
in this temporary body,
not until I had five children
of my own, how, when the man
held out his hand, she took it.
Neither of them speaking as she
leaned all her weight onto her one
