blistered lips

you’re a fucked up fraulein:
a plain-jane low-rent coward
bending over for cake crumbs
whispering and pointing and snarling
it sucks to be you

you’re a flimflam malingerer:
a hardscrabble box-of-bitch
kissing ass for nickles
sniffing and scratching and digging
it sucks to be you

you’re a wannabe who never was:
weightless and incidental
polishing apples for illegal tender
creeping and bowing and scraping
it sucks to be you

you’re a prayer-less maobite:
always outside looking in
falling all over your sorry self
crawling and grasping and whining
it sucks to be you

you’re a masticating pit bull:
ugly as sin and three times stupid
humping for your kibble and bits
snarling and chawing and slobbering
it sucks to be you

you’re an emaciated vampiress:
starving on the rancid bloat of envy
selling your abscessed flesh for scraps
mewling and whimpering and cringing
it sucks to be you

you’re a cheap trick in a shabby dress:
a bumbling beatitude of bad taste
licking boots for pennies on the dollar
fawning and kowtowing and abjuring
it sucks to be you

you’re a mercenary seductress:
salad-tossing your exiguous integrity
spreading your legs for niggardly churls
anguishing and bewailing and deprecating
it sucks to be you

you’re a counterfeit salome:
crossing your fingers behind your heart
putting out for the price of a song
sneaking and rooking and shafting
it sucks to be you

you’re the monkey on your own back:
the motherfucker of bad intention
fucking and sucking for peanuts
again and again and again
it sucks to be you

you’re a vagabond floozy:
a facsimile behind dime store lipstick
on your knees with your squalid mouth
swallowing and swallowing and swallowing
it sucks to be you

you’re a sideshow roustabout:
a blow-up doll for the midway rubes
flexing and opening at the drop of a hat
shifting and crooking and undulating
it sucks to be you

you’re a pink-collared hireling
nothing more and much more less
faking bastard orgasms on the bum
feigning and spoofing and dissembling
it sucks to be you

you’re an off-the-shelf goddess:
an unkempt tragedy of vassal-hood
giving it up for swill and slop
ravening and itching and craving
it sucks to be you

but most of all
you are what you aren’t:
and you will never be me

we are walking
and our cadence is elegant
our drumsong is the a cappella
of brethren heartsong

we are strong
and we are beautiful
and we know it now
we hold it close and breathe freely
listening to our music soar

we are observed
our jubilation envied,
even feared by some
still they sway and tap their feet
they do not understand
yet not one dares shun us

this is the flux, the flow, the future
hear our heartsong
for it will not be silenced
nor our footsteps halted

tomorrow was always here:
abiding, foreseeing
never forsaken
never uninterested
never belated nor sedated
just silent
just canny and brilliant and wise

we are walking
we are a symphony
we are a chorus
we are us:
venerably new
untried, yet unrestrained
we are us:
strong and beautiful
and you
yes, we are you

because she must
and the world is not parenthesized
never small at all
and her heart is even bigger
than any of it
or you or me

even yesterday
when she lived in the cup of your hand
with your bantam voice
the tablature of her days
the sway blessing
was upon her

and then this moment
while she sleeps in the cramp of your bruise
god gives you this: that
love is a circle and absolute
and so she binds you
now and always

ever tomorrow
and a thousand tomorrows redeemed
over and over
to lose what we gain, gain what we lose
and so love gives us
all that we are

because she must
because she’s blessed
because she knows
because she loves

there she goes
see her jumping the brilliant rainbow?
little girl in a hurry

she scratched her blue crotch
shedding enamel doctors
then rowed towards God

When death, reckless and brutal,
carved you from my quiet skin
I hid the grisly remains
beneath a neatly starched uniform.

Slowly, my deranged figure healed
and routine rhythms carried me from you.
I watched your hunch shadow creep away,
got drunk and danced naked in the dark.

In my new life and new clothes
I was beautiful, but my ribs were thin.
So I shoved rocks up my dress
and switched my shade of lipstick.

Last night the ragman came
but I know a wolf when I see one.
Trembling and panting, I ran into the alley
where my shoes were filled with sand.

I took off my blouse and beheld:
that the rocks were gone: my flesh
was warm and pink and full.
You had returned to fill out my body.

Smearing the lipstick from my mouth
I stepped from my skirt into the streetlamp’s light.
Then spread my fat thighs wide

….and was born.

i miss her
the body is as bold as ever
but the eyes
the eyes:
they are empty sockets

unable to heal
it’s christian zeal
that keeps the razor from her wrist
only barely

yet:
barely is enough
when
the heart is collapsed
the soul is stopped
the blood is curdled

but i miss her
and have seen your longing
locked forever into canvas metaphors
you shove beneath your bed
and stack
pile upon pile
in the corners of your different life

so we miss her
how we do miss her:

the poetry she kept in cupboards
for rainy days and rainy friends

the tears shed in buckets
for me, you, god’s children and debbie lee

the lust that moved her to seek
a reflection
that would make the need for the razor
obsolete