Can I just crash on your bed
& die there,
lay down my head
amongst sleepy pillow-covers & a damp willowy sheet?
Because it is the only place
where my dreams will become concrete,
where death will allow me.
Can I lay me down
with my disability for glee,
& my sticky agnaily fingers,
& gooseberry stuttery conduct
of the worst of all the worst singers
& sugar-coated lies 'n' penetrating eyes,
with my bronchitis and myness,
& urge to a trumpet-accompanied demise?
Can you tuck the moth-eaten eiderdown
with my nicotine, beach-tree stains
& a smell of cheep-gin-uptown,
iciness of Golf Stream on its bad day,
Philip Larkin’s sorrow
& wing-shot pigeons made of clay
Can you lay me down
with you?
although I ain’t do nothing but howl.
In the sexless world of godmotherness & clerks,
of caramel easter eggs,
of hidden from ma & pa leather-gloves —
here I go —
a lump of dirt,
no promises or dough,
with a brick on my chest
& an oil lamp between my legs
& a talent for a sweet unrest.
Can I ooze through —
back & forth to you?
Peek-a-boo!