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HAPAX LEGOMENON When I wake to piss he sleep-talks to me. His voice like foreign coins glued to the floor, Water slopping on slanted glass. A key snapped in the lock. Landscapes, and landscapes more. I decided to be a happy girl, and I was. The conventional lyric: salt, pony, vena cava. Hollowed burl of belly cataloging generic abandon. My mouth wet with permission. Decided to thumb off my plum’s wax bloom. Can I say etcetera yet? Use diction as plain as his, asleep in our room: Slut. His dreaming mouth is so precise. I get up, go pee, lie down, close my eyes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- HELLRAISER I wanted the way the back of the hand wanted the nail, once. The sprawling fist of black crickets the mouth the neck two pins curtaining me open to coarse whisper. You called me a bitch, the third time, last night. I can say I love you but cannot show you my breasts, anymore, or let you strike me, there, and on my face, during sex. I bend my body away, dressing, twist the bra around, and flip the cups up over me like the eyes closing on a body hung by the ankles. I want to want skinless- ness, fingers in mouth/soft neck be rats nailed to the wall, my teeth to click and click. |
