More gifts than speech fail me,
more lies than flies cling
to the static embrace of
the couch I sit on,
attempting drum solos along the
faded arm to the
rhythm of chattering teeth.
All movement suggests turns
of phrase that is exactly what 1'm thinking.
Only smoke comes from
my mouth and stammering
punctuates the coughing.
It's as if you've been
with me since the
start of time,
and that may be true:
my heart stops when your hand reaches into
your pocket book
to withdraw a pencil,
my watch stops and the hands on the
dial match the hands on my face
feeling for weaknesses in
the mask of cool, and, yeah,
a swollen lip
to drum
with forefinger
and blistered thumb.
There's more than my throat
I wish I could clear,
you're looking at
me in feline squints
that left claw marks
in the gap between our call and response.
My understanding of
what's happening is so complete and
subtle that it’s as meaningless
as bricked windows
and it makes
you looking confused while I confess
that I smoke when you're not around,
that professional wrestling is my passion,
that your legs make the history books
every time you get out
of car seat.
What I'm babbling about is
the poets' disease
of turning experience into stanzas
and arranging ironies in an order that
produces sighs like leaks in which
each emotion finds expression
in every bump in the road that
the flat tire drives over,
life gets lumpy like a
a plate of rocks a the breakfast table
--but oh, but shit, here's what I really see,
what dithering keeps me from, your lips, soft?
full bloom crimson crescent
under the exact pertness of your nose
pointing up whispering yes
along a frayed sting of desire
to the unknown land
of your eyes
clear as prayers in storybook churches
as they gaze back along the stretches and coastlines
of love that exists only
in the permanent promise of empty fields,
My eyes are soothed
by the cascades of twirled hair,
a bonfire mane that pours over your face
like curtains obscuring
a beautiful room I suddenly want to enter, your lips,
that is, I want to kiss, your neck I want to stroke,
hands tracing the lines of my back with fingertips and palms while my hands are likewise exploring the depth of your breathing against
my skin as they smooth down the lines of your back to your waist, I want to smell your hair and have my stubble get
caught in it like a stamp on a letter, refusing
to let me go, I guess this is my letter to tell you what the stammering is trying to disguise.
That is, would you like to start something neither of us has to finish?
