You taste like a tongue I’ve never spoken
each time I kiss you. There is nothing here
I understand, everything I want to. If you were music,
I’d at least know the tempo, how to sway or quickstep.
I could pick up a tango in a few hours
but it takes months to teach my tongue to twist
around new vowels. I am constantly dreaming
in a language that isn’t mine but my blood
has always beat with the memory of lost
consonants. My skin has always been a discovered
land to conquer. There have been so many hands
digging for the treasure of me, not least of all
my own. There’s not much left in my core,
no golden veins or diamond bones or youth fountain
just the trappings of a once-noble monarch.
I can’t claim sovereignty over my own mouth
any more than I can ask for safe passage
beyond these borders. When you kiss me,
do I still taste like a dead language?

a part
off in me, indeed, abandoned an I
now forbidden returns to store
rotten a rotten store
age where slander where self is concerned is
not exactly libel but may
provoke cockroaches
to lightly spice historic
freedom choices for freedom
solutions option solid
slim & dense noses: mine ain’t right, pick me
up a nude wand, where we can later record
the branches
to the branches
forsaking all those grounded fags on the ground
for hats turned side—
ways of forgetting
b-boys bronzed in Latin Quarters

microwave, me

everything can be reduced
to a quality of light

what i am feeling now
is blue sky behind dead trees
filtered through a window
just to the right
of whatever i’m staring at

last night i wanted to feel
like the faint sunrise glow
beyond a hill off the highway
the ragged, haloed treeline
like a breaking promise

but instead i was overcast
and muddy, a mess
of stout, stubby clouds
like cotton
packed over the sun
and my eyes, packed
into my ears and brain,
stopping up my throat,
blocking all the light

We were leaning on an empty sink past the shine of a shorting blacklight.
If we had moved another inch, our dust would have glowed.

You told me you had gone back to Allston for some reason,
and you noticed a couch from our old porch
molting like a stoner in our old yard.

I asked you which couch. There was a fifty-fifty chance
it was the couch where we landed together after our one Independence Day—
the wine stain in the crease, swept and blotted by our calves.

You sharpied a coyote skull on your cup.
I adjusted my elephant mask.

You told me it was the couch
where all of the mice had lived,

and I asked you how long mice live,
and you told me they don’t live very long.

society had no place for us so we left society and sought the god who comes (he comes he comes he comes) he delivers us and we roam through the countryside we tear through villages there is no stopping us woe unto any man who stumbles across our path for we will tear into him we will rip his flesh from his bones with our bare hands we will devour his nutrient-rich organs we will drink his blood and it will smear all over our faces but we will wear it with pride and when the blood flows from our sisters we will smear that on our faces as well and they will cry out in ecstasy (she comes she comes she comes) we are frenzied they say and they are right once you have gotten drunk on sex and violence once you have combined the two you cannot turn back and anyway society had no place for us and certainly there is no place for us now except this wilderness in which we feed the ground with blood and viscera and we wash it away with wine we are wild women yes it is true what they say wild animals take suck from our breasts and we tie snakes in our hair and wrap them around our waists it is true what they say there is no stopping us we are wild we will destroy anything that comes in our path we keep the nails on one hand sharp for rending flesh we keep the nails on the other hand dull for pleasuring flesh (she comes she comes she comes) it is true what they say about our orgies they are blood-soaked and wine-saturated and no man has ever laid eyes on us except for our god (he comes he comes he comes) we are holy we are pure and we are wild it is true what they say there is no stopping us you can only hide and even then we will find you we will rout you out we will destroy what we want we will pleasure what we want there is no stopping us there is only the oblivion that we seek it is after all what all humans want there is a place in the heart of every woman you know which yearns for this and every woman you know would join us if only she had the courage there is no stopping us we would accept her into our ranks with our arms and our fingers and our tongues and our bodies and our screams we would accept her with her sacrifice of blood and honey and wine we would accept her if only she would join us this is what you are afraid of this is what you desire you want to be torn apart by a beautiful woman who only keeps company with other women you want it you want to be destroyed there is no stopping us and we will grant you this wish we will tear you apart we will rip your heart out and your screams will be drowned out by the sounds of our pleasure we will fuck each other with your blood smeared on our naked bodies there is no stopping us

I worked ‘till midnight and when we
broke up, all I thought of was my aching
feet. I called you an asshole and what I meant

was why did you wear my favorite shirt
and those torn cut-offs that make your ass
look like something I’d like to sink my
teeth into. I held back my tongue so I
couldn’t shove it down your throat but

no, I don’t want to be your friend and
no, I don’t want to watch the X-Files with
you anymore. Yes, I will miss your dog
and yes, I want you to throw away my
toothbrush, my hairbrush, my lilac
shampoo, my coffee-stained mug, my

wine (don’t you dare drink that fucking wine).
No, I don’t want you to walk me to the “L.”
Tonight, I hope you smell that lilac shampoo
on your pillow and stare at that Polaroid of my

drunken face on your wall and read my poem about
kissing you until you wet your cum-stained sheets with
tears. When you’re hungry, I hope you mistake that
emptiness for missing me. I hope you think
of me when you pass train tracks, when you

walk by the shore of Lake Michigan, when you
play fetch with my socks that your dog loves.
And trust me: your bed will feel a thousand
times too big without me in it. The Mountain
Goats will never sound the same. Blowjobs
will never feel as good. And I’ve got a feeling
tomorrow when you wake up you’ll use my toothbrush

and remember the taste—
the intimacy of our teeth.

I’ve heard people speak of words
printed on paper as sensual, like or better
than sex, an embrace, skillful massage—

a visiting poet once tickled me
in a classroom of my peers, non-metaphorically,
that is, with her fingers.

I was a boy then, not because it was long ago,
but because of how she pointed out my ribs,
made me a rush of blood, a sequence of squirms,

made me grin my self-conscious teeth.
She made a point, probably, to the class,
though it was lost in me or I in it,

spinning at the tip of her finger.
This is to say, I would touch you if I could.

with a cup of heat
with two dark circles
with all of it at once
with every dog pacing before a shit
with a plate of steamed stars
with a knack for recognizing DNA
with a knack for understanding the stock market
with a knack for scoring goals
with me, my darling, with me, my darling, with me, my darling
with the army of my fingernail
with an array of swimwear
with an array of fashion
with an array of vaginal lubricants
with two white circles
with a cup of hot white milk
with a cup of hot buttered rum
with a blanket the size of my erection
with Harold Pinter in view
with my fucking inhibitions
with all the women on the internet
with every fetish imaginable on the internet
with all the bandwidth of David Bowie’s youtube videos
with every pixel on earth at this moment
with every particle of universal resource locators
with every sustainable energy slogan
with 3D printed guns in each hand
with every ecstasy
with every orgasm
with every birthday party
with two black circles
with two crayons of every color
with a cup of grass
with a cup of beans
with a cup of bullets
with a bucket of drones
I will shatter the vessel of flour from which god mixes together this whole mess.

I think that dark matter just might be dead souls.
Bodies play host to them until flesh is expired.
No longer held by gravity like light in black holes,
souls released with a bang, cosmically retired.

Bodies play host to them until flesh is expired,
along with fear and shame and secrets and loathing;
souls released with a bang, cosmically retired.
Expansion of darkness, and nothing, and more nothing.

Along with fear and shame and secrets and loathing,
my own Big Book so grand and apocryphal.
Expansion of darkness, and nothing, and more nothing.
What if I believe in this just because it’s beautiful?

My own Big Book so grand and apocryphal:
A man’s bedtime origin story that won’t breathe the day.
What if I believe in this just because it’s beautiful?
A ripple in time makes me go on this way.

A man’s bedtime origin story that won’t breathe the day,
no longer held by gravity like light in black holes.
A ripple in time makes me go on this way:
I think that dark matter might just be dead souls.