She Said

She said I can’t imitate.
She said you are too fat to run.
She said they don’t all fit.
She said she had to take that call.
She said there are no accidents.
She said give me your fucking number.
She said…I can’t remember what she said.

But she now, wordless,
it was the best kiss I’d ever had,
her mouth so very soft and
tasting the taste of licorice and cigarettes.
In the warmth of her tongue pressing into my spine
I could feel in everything, be one with all
From the sensation of her mouth on mine.
She kissed me with her eyes closed and
when she was done she opened them and looked at me.

I think she knew what she had done.

I saw her once or twice, here and there.
The world is not so big, the horizons not so far.
She never looked too happy.
Now I hear she has moved far away.

Four Kings, Four Queens

There are four kings: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades.
There are four queens too: Maiden, Mother, Crone, and Condescension.
The kings rule, each in their turn, while each queen seeks only to be obeyed.

So,
I dreamt of being in your white house,
Alone of all the Kings,
Searching for my shoes
Just trying to leave,
While you, taller than you truly are, but
Dead-eyed just like you really are,
The outcast Queen of Condescension,
Thought it was all about you.

It wasn’t, and
I swear that if that house in that dream had but one open window
I’d have jumped without my shoes.

The Hours Walk Then They Run

I am in the express line
at Wal-Mart
It moves like the clock in class
When I was fifteen,
(This is to say not at all)
The people in front of me are old
They talk to the clerk
They can’t even see
That she doesn’t want to be there
And this old guy
Takes four minutes just to open his wallet
With his spotted, palsied hands
Don’t let me get old.
Don’t let me get slow.
Don’t show me any poetry,
That isn’t justified left, poetry
That is just adjectives and adverbs shit all over the page,
So fucking stupid that no one can read it.
The hands of the clock move so fast now
They used to walk and now they run
And these old people, the clerk, and all the bad poets
They fall now, like people running downhill and losing their balance
And here I am, in line, waiting
With them.

Sappho’s Honey

Sappho wrote of honey
two thousand years ago.
Now some girl sits here in front of me
telling me
that whatever it is that I like
she will never like it
whatever it is
ever.
She forgets that I never asked her.
I admit, I never spotted the uniform
although I did catch the salute.
So leave already.
Let Sappho write of the honey.
Let me write of the knife.