Forbidden

Her name is Tracy and she looks at men all day

on screens and streets and books.

She is made of desires women are not supposed to have,

her sisters rendered blind by modesty.

Her dearest friend looks only at the swirl of turquoise

feelings that envelope her man

and never the back or the shoulders that Tracy hungers for

at every party,

unwrapping him from his suit while her friend prays over the meal.

And what no one knows except the pantry of his brain,

is he longs to be kissed by her lashes,

loves to be seen as a thrill,

as a man sees a woman

and a woman is forbidden to see a man.

Porn Culture

Branches etch messages in the window panes.

I stare out at the asylums chewing on the victims.

A man has a web server where his heart should be.

A woman saunters past, laminated, glossy, unremarkable and perfect.

and he does not glance up.

His hands are writing a wiki of the world.

His eyes already own hordes of long, tan legs,

trunks of breasts that stand as zeniths of desire.

He has entire folders of ass.

The woman struts smiling.

There will be another man she can pass,

being made only to turn necks and catch eyes.

There has to be.

She cannot plan for another possibility.

Mother Angst

I am snow. Not real snow. I am too thick and fat and warm for that. But I am equally fickle, white, storm tossed, blinding. There are many just like me swirling in this orb. And who I love is this boy. He is so little, his smile almost too wide for the edges of the plane on which we live. He is a good boy, quiet and sad. I know that if I am not his mother I was meant to be. Still, his life is thin, will tear at a touch, and he will slip out of existence like a mirage of water. I will be left tumbling over strange faces who may have that sweet jaw line or wiry hair, but are not my son.

Linear

Lines and lights

antagonize

each other.

Outside I hear a running leaf pronounce someone man and wife,

then run away before the explosions.

The buildings groan in death throes

and money leaks out with termites,

a deformed child with the eyes of the devil

and the mania of a spurned woman.

A line zigzags through the parking lots

a light right on it

illuminating where it has been,

leaving a shadow where it will go.

The shadow sharpens his teeth.

Memoir of a Rhinestone

Memoir of a Rhinestone

 

The light boils and boils within me.

I grin without skin

and color gushes out.

I was born in the dark and dirt.

Everyone around me was just like me.

Everyone around me knew they were special.

 

And some of us held onto that belief,

and I in my green translucency was not the least of them,

until buried in a wood of polished trees I saw

a green so pure,

so somber with the weight of effort and intention-

formed like a tooth of God,

and I felt my plastic disintegrate .

Memoir as a Dress Outgrown

Memoir as A Dress Outgrown

 

For so long gone I have been a good casing

Like for a bullet hard and dreaming of skin.

I am sleek and shiny.

but no matter the forces against me

I don’t know how to give,

so when the bullet inside me

became molten,

too much material for not enough material

I knew I would be shed,

flying backward to your eyes.

I feel ineffectual,

Insubstantial,

but I know I am beautiful

the way she watches my silken shine on the floor

the way she fingers my creases.

Cheddar Fire

Cheddar fire and

wood smoke lull the senses into luxury.

Barbecued hours are sweet and tangy.

Laying here your silence is meaty,

your want moist.

The house is but a beautiful carcass

you bought from a taxidermist,

covered in cherry blood and the sweat of chocolate.

Everything is warm –

the flavors, the evening,

you when you ask the question

I am designed not to hear.

The grill is breaking his fast.

Do you really need your shirt?