on leashes. See, look at me
tear out handfuls of hair.
Papa’s always quoting that brutal
book, trying to get hills to march
home. Your tongue lights
the air. Tonight, I can’t help
but hold your breasts till
my mouth fills with honey.
You’re dragging the dark
waters in me with hooks,
& I talk from under your clothes.
No Love in This House
Tonight I touch your breasts.
September’s fruit.
Nipples, eyes of fire.
I kiss you deep
as a knife could go.
I pull you out of your jeans.
Black panties, red rose,
my fingers find
the center of you
where the blues begin.
I’m in a room of you
where a white horse
shockwaves. It’s hard to break
away: flesh, wine, language.
We curve into dance.
When I drive myself into you
you’re singing the name
of a man in Rifle Gap
with his cowboy boots propped
on another woman’s kitchen table.
High on Sadness
I think about you
till you’re naked
at a window waving goodbye.
Till the bones come out,
bright airplane
on an assembly line.
Violin bows, ribs.
I think about you
till a great beetle
beams on six legs
of unreason. I take you
baroque ballerina
into my arms for the last time,
& your metallic feelers
search the air.
It’s always out
in the next city
of rooms filled with California
Spiritual Sunshine incense
I go, a sleepwalker
on a cliff.
Sunbather
She lies under July, a blue towel
across her buttocks, her bare back
new metal arched in a dark room.
A sycamore guards her. Three crows
in symmetrical branches
watch their feathers fall,
black leaves. Today is
an 8″ ×10″ platinum photograph
in an old man’s dresser drawer.
The sky’s a slow fire,
car lights over night ice.
I close my eyes, concentrate,
& try to remove the blue towel
till the sun goes out.
Apprenticeship
His fingernails are black
& torn from blows,
as if the hammer
declares its own angle of reference.
The young carpenter curses:
“Awww, fuck! Sonovabitch! Dumb shit!”
His girlfriend lowers her white dress,
then moves away.
She reappears nude,
props one foot upon a red chair,
looks him square in the eyes.
Her skin glistens like a woman
who’s made love all afternoon.
Twenty-two stories up, he steps out
over the beams like a man with wings.
Light on the Subject
Hello, Mister Jack,
make yourself at home.
Here in Deadwood City
our eyes flash back to
knives on silver whetstones.
Can I get you anything,
perhaps a shot of Four Roses?
In this gray station of wood
our hearts are wet rags
& we turn to ourselves,
holding our own hands
as the scaffolds sway.
I can tell you this much
Brother Justice, our faith’s
unshakable, even if we rock stones
asleep in broken arms.
