aayoungthere you are
right on cue
as if you personally orchestrated
my having been born
in September
the devil you know
swelling and morphing
through my dreams
your face changing
wearing various masks
such grand theatre
i weep
destroy my sheets
crying out in the night
reddest blood flowing
into marzipan rivers
oh my dear
how beautifully we suffer
this tether
my soul was lost
in an apple orchard
faded to ether
the human heart is attached
to 60,000 miles of veins
my fingers have grown accustomed
to tying a tourniquet while in pain
endless units of love i have wasted
on the wrong bodies
so much love squandered
as it was pumped into me
that’s what a poet is good for
bloodletting in ink
connective tissues
splattered lace doilies
misery as currency
sad bastard love songs
& valentines day
killing sprees
i fell upon the bed
spent
my hair cascading over the edge of time
black tendrils
red and gold reflecting
the light of burning stars
i am dick drunk
bow-legged sore
knees quaking
throbbing
lips swollen from forceful kisses
smiling
at the taste of him
he makes me forget
if i have ever been
in love like this before
winter
was a crime scene
blood splattered onto frosted windows
red lipstick curse on the vanity mirror
high rise
victim dismembered
meat rotting
in poorly wrapped packages
to be toe tagged
orphans whisked away by the government
appointed neglectful
pearls fallen across the sticky floor
to a police radio symphony
Mahler fatalistic
smug detectives
sipping black coffee
no sugar to be found in the city
a glib act
notebook scratches
with no hope for answers
or finding the perpetrator
who caused
the whole mess
.
Twin brothers
born of the 3rd century
in Cilcia, Turkey
.
The patron saints of
physicians and surgeons
and those suffering
with blood disease
.
kindly hear
my anemic prayer
.
Saints who gave up their lives
so that others
may have comfort and mercy
.
Saint Kosmas
and
Saint Damianos
speak in gently whispered prayer
to God for me
.
O Gladsome Light of the Heavens
I implore the holy spirit
to take away my ailments
and be of service to others
that they see
of thy
Glory
.
.
with the exception of the episiotomy
i was given during the birth of my twins
no one has ever taken a scalpel to me before
not one surgery
or major procedure ever needed to be performed
until today
.
when a small mass
was removed from the muscular calf
of my left leg
after being administered a local anesthetic
.
a minor thing
i should feel lucky
it isn’t more
.
possibly cancer
possibly nothing
possibly
my payback
for dumbassed teenage tanning bed gore
the pathologist is soon to issue a report
having been a mortician
i thought i was so fucking hardcore
able to stand the sight of anything
but as i undressed tonight
to find the bandage had come off beneath my pant leg
i was unprepared
for the cauterized sight of the hole
for nausea
the room suddenly spinning
cold sweat
and my body crashing to the floor
when i saw a piece of myself cut away
and death standing patiently in the bedroom door
i don’t fear dying
but i am horrified at the thought
of my leaving my sons alone
in this cruel world
it happens somewhere in the moment
when you gently intrude your fingers
upon the back of his head
allowing them to wander his hair
stimulating willing skin
withholding all but your tongue’s tip
teasing him with glancing lips
your womanly softness
defined in that sacred place beneath the breast
pressed into the full length of him
that delicious instant you feel
the dam of his passions give way
all his blood and sense a torrent insisting
your thighs relent
to the poetry
you must know
i was only capable of loving you
because i hated myself at the time
who in their right would choose a yolk
of unjustified mistrust
degradation
and mutilation
i threw everything you ever gave me
off the terwelleger bridge
into the little miami river
drunk and laughing
at 3 o’clock in the morning
a fetid dump wasn’t good enough
that shit needed to see the ocean again
but i kept two things
a photo album you gave me
all pictures of you
kissing pictures of me
to remind myself that i did matter
i did have worth and always will
the face of evil must be remembered
to better warn the other villagers
and a copy of the only honest poem you ever wrote
three days after bloody sheets and hands
as two rivers converged in pittsburgh
“lift your cup to this immortal passing
this child of ours who will not every cry
then no tear is shed without love lasting”
that’s the only thing you ever did
that i don’t hate you for
then came that moment
sitting across the diner table
as the butter knife entered
intercostal muscles
anchoring your feminine ribs
when the last thread
holding your white summer dress
together
gave way
the room and your lungs fell silent
and you
knew
you just fucking knew
to your bloody shoes
that you would be the next woman
whose character would be assassinated
body chewed by snaggled tooth
bones licked clean
gone through
entrails strung across
a pennsylvania turnpike
and he would soon be
full mouthed
reliving the kill
while eating a pink fleshed
corned beef sandwich
talking of you
using words as a means of sacrilege
to the next gullible victim
while explaining he’s never physically
hurt a woman
and you shouldn’t
make him break
his streak
over you
she
fears
i hold
the black hole history
him
the wasted gas
air fare
the futility of it all
against her
but i do not
i stand solidly incapable
not one part of me misunderstands
or resents her
we accepted the same candy
handed out of a van
we escaped the same mind maddening cage
grew the same gills
we lost pieces of ourselves fighting
the same bloody war
left with the same bite marks
scars
and rage
so when i hear her heart still beating
i smile and think of us
diving through sargasso
for the remaining pearls