*
they all say
you’re lovely
but every time I look
the sun
(or something else)
gets in my eyes


*
Yeah that was
once in a lifetime
baby

you gotta be clean and
with new shoes
to love like I loved you.

I think it won’t happen again.


*
damn you
lovely
you come and go
like rivers
which makes it hard
on rocks


*
in case you put me down I put you down
already, doll
I know the games you play

In case you put me down I got it figured
how there are better mouths than yours
more swinging bodies
wilder scenes than this.

In case you put me down it won’t help much.


*
In your arms baby
I don’t feel no
spring in winter
but I guess I can do
without
galoshes.

In your arms baby
I don’t hear no
angels sing
but maybe I forget
to turn on
the phonograph.


*
your tongue
explodes 
like jailbreaks
in my head


*
No aperture of your body I do not know
no way into your gut I have not studied

so now
we pause for this finesse
silk at yor temples
and
in the hollow of your neck
a tongue
goes gently


*
I hope
you go thru hell
tonight
beloved.
I hope
you choke to death
on lumps of stars
and by your bed a window
with frost
and moon on frost and
you want to scream
and can’t
because
your woman is (I hope)
right there
asleep.

Baby I hope you never shut your eyes
so two of us
can pick up on
this dawn.


*
you are not quite
the air I breathe
thank god

so go.


*
you bet your life
next bedtime
I’ll get even

I’ll call your name wrong
and you’ll think
it happened
accidental


*
the word you whispered
turned your hair
to snakes
and that star
your face
went nearly out


*
long gone that light behind you
gone
that light
that made the edges of your shoulders live
and kept your face a secret


*
for you
i would no longer pick
my so-pickable nose
or bite my delicious nails

for you i would fix my teeth
and buy a mattress

for you
i’d kill my favorite roach
that lives in the woodwork
by the drawing table


*
shuddering the dark
rocks us both in her arms
from her tongue red flowers spring
from between her thighs
the white gull flies, he moans, we spill aside
his highboned chest cuts forward
finds its rhythm
he pins with amorous wing the struggling
moon


*
So much of space between us two
We kiss the planets when we kiss
No closeness ever shuts this out
So much of space between us two

We kiss the planets when we kiss
And all the ether knows your hand
And dust from Saturn foils my tongue
So much black light caresses us

No closeness ever shuts this out
But mouth from shoulder, thigh from thigh
Explosive air unwinds our love
So distance holds, so love is safe