June Heat
The human body is built to sleep away the afternoons.
I guess that’s why no matter where I am at 2pm
I crave a soft mattress of grass and clovers
for a nap under the sun.
When you
see indigo
buntings caught in sidelight
sliding through early June morning
you can
believe
you have never
seen blue as God made it
that first fresh daybreak when the world
began.
tattooed down my chest.
Desperate reminders.
To see it, see it, see me.
Etch them out in pitch black letters.
let them overlap.
And overlap and overlap and overlap.
Make me a spiderweb,
stitched together intricately.
I trap you.
Cocooned in my black silk lines to be added to the collection.
To be consumed. To be loved. To be held.
You turn into just another thread in my spool, a line of cursive hemmed on my skin.
Swimming in a sea of sins,
you are so unremarkable.
*(summoning lips
of acrylic to be
and yet piquing the treacly
brow of some gawking sable
clung at the hem of a canopy,
gold and Hookers green,
and nary a canvas sea
to incense to the muslin
taupes and greiges tickling
little Manhattan, twisting
wickedly west of Topeka,
Fredonia, Ore, and Odessa)
aswim in the softly acicular sea
of asemic dapple and dandling
oak leaves,
bricks and plinths
of marl and sediment
honed
to the murmurous umber of
sea foam;
dallying threads
of fretless shades like
oenomel steel strummed soft
as a silken
fan bids sodden wool worked thick
as a sunken meringue
to the brisk and gingery clip
of a sea breeze— thi
did you clean your room
did you do your homework
did you brush your teeth
did you put away the laundry
did you wash the dishes
did you lock the door
did you put gas in the car
did you drink the last Coke
did you start (your period)
did you say your prayers
did you get enough sleep
did you do enough exercise
did you overdo it
did you take down the trash
did you bring the trash can back up
did you bring the mail inside
did you ask the neighbor
did you ask your teacher
did you wear that to school
did you use foul language
did you cheat on the test
did you steal it
did you forget the Ten Commandments
did you call your grandmother back
did you push your little sister
did you make your brother angry
did you wear your seatbelt
did you clean your plate
did you just talk back
did you lie
did you tell the truth
did you hear what she said
did you sleep with him
did you give him your money
did you pay the bill
did you see who was in the car
did you catch him in the act
did you lose the baby
did you get fired
did you get the test results
did you get a second opinion
did you have the surgery
did you wet yourself
did you take your pills
did you take too many pills
did you miss a dose
did you finish chemo
did you sign your will
did you ever think about me
did you know that i loved you
did you ever really love me
did you even try
Sweat soaked, wind
batters the pane
screech of freight wheels
I feel the throb
of blood pulsing in my ears
eyes shut, I drift
to the moonlit scrub
of his beard. I’m not
one to prayerfully
surrender but what else
is there to do but yield
to this light in the dark?
Lake so smooth I thought of you,
how your bare thigh held my head
those easy going days and nights
before things turned bad.
Lake so smooth I thought of you
rolling joints on the pink glass table,
pink like lips, pink like waking
from the sleep of deep concussion.
Lake so smooth I thought of you,
body of your golden Gibson,
wake like string across the chasm
of the whirl of memory.
Lake so smooth I thought of you,
slick like butter on the plate,
your blonde hair on the pillowcase,
my fingers dipped in water.
You, I know, go for the ritual
The ceremony, the formality of it all
I, in contrast, mock it all
The cult of it all
You walk in the garden, sheild the insect
Say the prayer, hold the memory
Each stone, plant and bird speak to you
I, in contrast, say; control can be overated
Florida man sees your lisence plate, yells;
Fuck yourself back to New York
And you tell him;
Bless your heart
Right there in front of the Burt Reynolds Ranch
Right there in plain sight on a hot June highway
The earth shifts a degree
You give it a jolt, and;
Greed becomes generosity
Narcisism becomes selflessness
Lies become honesty
Cowardliness becomes courage
Cynisism becomes humor
Flamboyant becomes colorful
Livid becomes bright
Self delusion becomes asuredness
Manic becomes happy
Lust becomes love
Pitied becomes admired
Defeated becomes successful
Washed out becomes up and coming
You’ve been here all along
In plain sight
Only now do I see you
“Since then–’tis centuries–and yet each
