There should be something about your life
that I still do not know —
still inches of skin, unexplored, by my hunting knife,
still birthmarks to show,
still there is I and my need to reveal
the visions I have of you and the cobblestone,
tabacco in the pockets, bad breath to conceal,
the desire and fear of staying alone
on these streets,
without you, me and the cobblestone.
Soiled underwear and sheets,
the hat falling from your head. Down.
Palms grated by air — unbuttoning me,
desolate, stout-scented old part of town,
your handkerchief, your ability to foresee.
Silver and jingly, three of them,
with two holes in each,
red on black, like coral gem,
you undo each.
I captivate your hands near
my sore blood-centred whip.
I feel like a scout, like a volunteer
with a milk-stained lip.

How many times I’ve dreamt of this,
of a frantic fuck in a corner,
where my brother, drunk, once had a piss
and my mother paraded dressed as a mourner,
and now —
the heated syllables of your own name
on the wall behind my back play a game
turning into a dirty graffiti.

I come as if forever
is put on a blue plate across
and will remain there till I severe.
I sigh as if I-will-never.

(Inuit leopard, opaque velvet, eagle,
yardbirds over Utah
nostrils open, regale
Aruba.)

When you are drifted back home
I look around. I. I rip myself open,
I find a cityscape made of loam
doorhandles curved, glass beer-bottled-broken.
And what I see and what I hear is me.
And that is a crowd’s far-off drone
and that is the streets of cobblestone.
I put my hand into my bosom,
I can feel cooling blood and bone
soaked in the perfume of that woman
I know, what I clutch is a stone.