you soften me
like butter

and i’ve been spreading stones
on dry bread,
and i’ve been heavy

a sack of river stones
all a long time wearing
their rough edges down

leaving sand in my cough
and gravel in my words

since cock learned to crow
and crow learned to fly
and fly learned to hum

now the ground won’t hold me
still the sky won’t have me

but the waters,
at last the waters
will float me

now i don’t feel like a rock
to their cold hands

you scare me like the rollercoaster the one that won’t be built because no climb no fall no loop loop loop can catch what’s in your eye what moves your limbs changes your walk what bangs open the door

and grabs and holds me and my eyes can’t catch what’s transmitted from your skin to my skin a morse code of muscle and bone of the deep body churning and the head fire burning and the heart like a hammer banging on a cage

and the body ain’t enough no kiss no touch no fuck and the message is failing and we’re open mouthed mutes and it’s in there and it’s in there and it isn’t coming out and we’re pressed like meat but still not touching and if we do is why you scare me like the rollercoaster

it is joining it is stirring it is music it is drums it is beating it is losing it is finding it is the white cry it is the collapse it is eating it is consumption it is being devoured by lions it is tearing it is dying it is possession it is opening it is unfurling it is taking possession it is inflating it is expanding into your body

it is green and red and blue sandwiching sliding grinding open fields in bright sun the sting it is the sting of spines wind rushing up it is a small room it is action in a box it is the cold against the skin it is the wall the traffic sounds barely penetrate it is the size of your bed it is all the uncollected dust on the carpet sticking to your skin it is smothering and sweating in the dark under the sheets

it is nerves exposed it is nerves pulled and snapped like bands it is teeth bared it is the neck tender it is arms it is feet folding it is loss folded through found it is an embrace that locks you together and that should not end but it is the end that locks you together wishing away the end the destination of everything that starts

i’m glad you’re getting dressed,
not that i am tiring of you
playing statuary (with topiary)
but i was growing concerned
that i may lose my job
while you held me here
knowing full well my reluctance
to leave this room with a view
of you that never seems to imprint
itself firmly enough on my mind’s eye
as if you might be an unwordly vision
i do not have the capacity to grasp
and instead i am blinded by it, feeling you,
imagining i am seeing you, by the currents
that radiate from you like angelic waves
of warmth and the feathers in the bed
are not eiderdown and that clever reading light…

my jaw hurts this morning,
the soft under-tongue is raw and cut,
my lips are swollen and soft like late figs.

my arms - dim spots are darkening
where you gripped them,
on my chest your mouth’s welts are livid.

inflammation of the softer tissues,
my mood, and my thoughts.
i am singing and when i think of you
i bite my tender lips.