85 Lust and desire poems

Show me the body that brides its quest, that sleeps its seemings, tremblant inconnue, jeweled Ophelia of diaphanous hue in all her slippings, weed-wedded, water-dressed, the sluice and swooning of her semblant rest— the river ruptures, the weeds branch blue— day’s jaune eyes (wide lucencies) bleed new hollow spaces where the breathings nest, irised mnemosyne, rumored as a rune. Oh roared red pulse, errata, when you die maiden-postured, murmur in the wrist, tendrilled syllables the waters twist, or innered element (it is an I) the dead girl blurring in the blooded noon.

For our own private reasons We live in each other for an hour. Stranger, I take your body and its seasons, Aware the moon has gone a little sour For us. The moon hangs up there like a stone Shaken out of its proper setting. We lie down in each other. We lie down alone and watch the moon’s flawed marble getting Out of hand. What are the dead doing tonight? The padlocks of their tongues embrace the black, Each syllable locked in place, tucked out of sight. Even this moon could never pull them back, Even if it held them in its arms And weighed them down with stones, Took them entirely on their own terms And piled the orchard’s blossom on their bones. I am aware of your body and its dangers. I spread my cloak for you in leafy weather Where other fugitives and other strangers Will put their mouths together.

Coming together it is easier to work after our bodies meet paper and pen neither care nor profit whether we write or not but as your body moves under my hands charged and waiting we cut the leash you create me against your thighs hilly with images moving through our word countries my body writes into your flesh the poem you make of me. Touching you I catch midnight as moon fires set in my throat I love you flesh into blossom I made you and take you made into me.

This was my gig: white lace apron, cut-out bra and crop. I crouched above him every Thursday in the marble bathroom, pissed on his bare chest as let him lick me dry. He wasn’t the first to love the thought of the redness of a bottom, mark of a heel. So when my ex dropped three tabs of sunshine and decided I’d screwed his best friend, I thought I knew what to expect. Hadn’t the drag queen across the street, pistol-whipped, sat silent on her folded raincoat?There is nothing anyone can do

There was a time when I watched it happen. Strangers pressed to other strangers in one bed, clothes on, air humid with the cloying scent of fruit juice and vodka; none of us giving into another and yet unwilling to leave the scene of that possibility, pretending to sleep, actually sleeping. Then waking again to slip a hand over a shoulder, slide a finger inside the waistband of a skirt; so young (we are even now still so young) in that hotel room turning blue then lighter blue. We wouldn’t have tried for more: the kiss, the button; firm, white shape of an image slipped wholly into the mind, acted upon, dreamed upon, filling the thin vessels of the lungs. Earlier, a film, its forced sounds of lovemaking. The tension I felt winding into the muscles of some of the others in the room. I remember I left for awhile. We all left for awhile; even the music was frightening. How to strip ourselves like that, point at the places that were wanted, plucked and peeled; speaking the words, hearing them form us, the nature of what we were and could do to each other? The music, the rocking, the sobbing. The man called the woman by parts of herself. Some laughed at this. I remember I must have been one of them. In the morning, the hotel room was turning white. After the long night, hands were slipping and unslipping, moving over the flattened pillows as if in hopes something small could still satisfy us. Someone turned and looked at someone else; we all heard it. Legs shifted, sheets slid themselves down waists or shoulders, tightened again at the necks of those pretending to sleep as the unblinking sun crawled in our window. From another room, coughing, We all heard it. Someone looked at someone else. The room turned white. The air began clearing.

Of like importance is the posture too, In which the genial feat of Love we do: For as the females of the four foot kind, Receive the leapings of their Males behind; So the good Wives, with loins uplifted high, And leaning on their hands the fruitful stroke may try: For in that posture will they best conceive: Not when supinely laid they frisk and heave; For active motions only break the blow, And more of Strumpets than of Wives they show; When answering stroke with stroke, the mingled liquors flow. Endearments eager, and too brisk a bound, Throws off the Plow-share from the furrow’d ground. But common Harlots in conjunction heave, Because ’tis less their business to conceive Than to delight, and to provoke the deed; A trick which honest Wives but little need.

All those Liquid love affairs, Blind swimmers Trusting rumps. We wiggled, Imagining water. Wet, where was The One? Nevermind Atlantis And the promise Of moving pictures, A lit candle In the window Of our conscious minds. Those who danced, Pretending to swim Underwater, Did so out Of pure allegiance. Some wore snorkels Made with The waistbands Of funky underwear, Others wet suits With clothespins Clamped to their noses, Airtight as Black Power handshakes. Rump-by-rump, The strings attached To our thangs were Reeled into The Deep And rhythmic as fins, Schools of P signs Flapped and waved Like flags. One nation Under a groove. No one held their breath In the flashlit depth. No one sank.

Acorn-brown, the girl's new nipples draw the young men's rooster eyes where a woman is fitting a man to her mouth, breathing fire, holding for dear life. Green almonds in their shells: she knifes them open one at a time and hands him a slick teardrop, cool white tasting cool white. Nothing compares with such austerities, although the skull's honeycomb of bone will break their hearts, who need hearts like a bird's wishbone, to bend, unbend at every feathery beat—wishbone hearts, or something fleet and light as an ostrich's leg-bone, bearing him to where, panicked with grief, he can bury his head in sand. Papyrus light: a scarf with black parrots on it lifts in the breeze, and a real rare bird is about to fly—his head in the clouds, his life shrouded in daylight he keeps breaking.

Come here’s a peach he said and held it out just far enough to reach beyond his lap and off- ered me a room the one room left he said in all of Thessaloniki that night packed with traders The peach was lush I hadn’t slept for days it was like velvet lips a lamp he smiled patted the bed for me I knew it was in fact the only room the only bed The peach trembled and he said Come nodding to make me agree I wanted the peach and the bed he said to take it see how nice it was and I thought how I could take it ginger- ly my finger- tips only touch- ing only it Not in or out I stayed in the doorway watching a fly He stroked the peach and asked where I was from I said the States he smiled and asked how long I’d stay The fly had found the peach I said I’d leave for Turkey in the morning I wanted so much to sleep and on a bed I thought of all the ways to say that word and that they must have gradient meanings He asked me did I want the peach and I said sure and took it from his hand He asked then if I’d take the room It costs too much I said and turned to go He said to stay a while and we could talk The sun was going down I said no thanks I’d head out on the late train but could I still have the peach and what else could he say to that but yes

at  first  she  thinks  the  attraction  does not fill  her  with  enough  blood ,  but with  a  thing  like  the  dove —    White and coloured feathers   —   Bones  unlike  her  own bones  that  gravity  can’t  pull  down  ,  a milky  thing unlike   the  seas .           Fills her  with    a                      wind —    Starch  rustle  of the quick passing  of    things  ,  then    silence   afterwards of  the  things that passed —    that gave the wind its  sound      ,   not       unlike     what   split the fireworks  in  the  high  school  park   into   fanning particles of  flame .    The   peacock    that      is  the   world ,         bird of       breathing  colour    between  them —    Bird that  is  everything to  choose from   —   or the one thing  , sacred bone of the particular    —