Notturno

Railroads serve the purpose
of the old man’s wrinkled face
and one night stands are porpoise
and promises weave like lace,
stained church-glass breaks to pieces
each time I come to confess
and quick kisses are vers libre
for scavengers like me.

My awful rowing to shore
where rhyme does not exist —
the countdown: from one to four
meets my will, it meets my fist
again words substitute people
and hello ends in goodbye,
our walk ends under the steeple
stinking of vomit and rye.

I’m ready to bake the sin
but my hands are new to flour
so I get vice out of tin,
my only Warhol-dower,
so I soil you! I soil you
with prose and purple lipstick,
once more. More. Last time I flew
away on my witch-broomstick —

But not this time, I refuse
to take the conjurer’s mask
turning my face into a bruise
just for a sip of ruby’s cask
from your mouth. A porpoise mouth
that can engulf this whole city
of sacred artifice
cutting out hearts and leaving façades.
And farewells are darts.

A wolf-claw hangs from my hand —
my ballpoint and my feather,
that’s what we wear in my land —
land of the shiny boots of leather
(I teach you teach me say
“Tu peux jouir dans ma bouche”)
No Vera singing, “We’ll meet again”
before first blood, before first snow
and counting your every cain
I decide which way I’ll row —

there is an island —

with no rhyme, no meter,
no slap to make me bitter-sweeter.
I cast a spell,
as we’re standing near the bell tower,
and another and another and another.
You got to pay
with this and this and this
and this façadomy kiss.

— an island for us to reign o’er.