Salvatore

Squalor, the countess
gracefully arching her back to swoop down
past the swaying pines outside of my new window.

She licks her lips in tempting, gently singing
me through my daily hunger, the helpless
searching for quarters under carpets.

Her breath in blankets of frost over my scaly
winter legs, her hot hands holding me
through my summer sweats.

Squalor, the countess
As to enter arcanum. to make words with ink
to leave blood behind.

when the night finally
left me, he left only the taste
of wine in my mouth.
the window was open,
your warm hand on my back as
the rest of you peaks out from
behind the rolling hills of
blankets. we felt the collapse
of things those days, we
smiled through most of it. a
lump of skin on your pillow, I
awoke from our dance wet with
morning. The hunger set in soon
after, a new friend of mine these
adult days.

I dreamed of free liquor and good steak.
a pack of cigarettes and a well-fed pet dog to drool on the carpet.
across our room, the merciless window stood
grinning.

with your head nearly craning
itself into your black beer,
you drink alone in a bar with
your phone off. stare at your hands,
hold back the feeling of vomiting.
they have held such light that
has been stolen, now all you
see is ugly calluses and groping
for an absent body in the sheets.

stumble back to your tiny room.
the lights are off and you don't
bother to turn them on. undress
in the dark, the nearly silent clanking of
keys and belt loops makes up the
soundtrack to the moon's reign
over us. try to ignore the visions
of her, her legs like giant antennas
pointing up at our great absent god.
she mouths a name that is not your
name in the blackness, he pumps
his worthless skin into your love
as you lay at home
drinking in bed.

another day you wake,
hide the bullet for the pen.
you remember her hands and how
she hated when you looked at them
so you snuck glances when she wasn't looking.
you remember kisses in the kitchen
and the mornings made of fingertips.
you get out of bed, stand over the
toilet. you think of her happy without
you. throw up something so dark
it could only be something dead in you.
pull a shirt over your aching body,
and try to do it again. another day,
try.

there is magic in the way
a woman emerges from a
bed to gather
her clothes. me
naked, hands behind my
head, proping my face foward
to watch you
looking down and
smiling clutching your
bra and shirt near
to your chest. it
is only our laughter
seperating our holy moment
from feeling violated,
but with the window blowing
sweet and sticky
we are together nonetheless.

they are the only moments I don't hate myself.

sitting here listening to my cat
's collar jingle as she chases
flies up the bare stucco wall,
I curse the men who raped this land
and their legacy which continues
to make the liquor stores close
by nine pm. sober and searching
my arms fall too softly to their
sides. my mouth too dry out of
protest for it's longing; I fling
prayers at a straight-faced sky
for a gift of poesy, a moment
of genius to wear like a deathmask(
hiding me from the ungodly pull
of the horrible ground. I begin
to curse the frost for leaving.)

the calender tells me it is spring
time and my fingers laugh with it's
desperate lie. my neck in need of
kissing, I see no lovers in the
park my window overlooks so out of
obedience to me, he stays shut.
my fingers twirl around the rim
of an empty wine bottle, the cat
walks across the table and lays down
in front of the keyboard. she looks
down at my hands, confused and
underpaid like factory workers with
wives they hate. she jumps down
and walks away. maybe she knows
bad poetry better than all of the
journals do.

you are made of kind things and
today my window talks in rain in rain and
and the pangs of water on metal. the old
world and the new world making love in
between this hardness our love safely
sits.

bring me your magnificent hands when
it is far too early to be alone. I lay in bed
with the blinds closed, my face transfixed
at the bumps and grooves of my ceiling
like God examining the ocean once before
he walked away from us. I curse Florida's name.

we dance in this hardness and hide our faces in our hands;
come home to me and I will come home to you.

So much beauty in the way you turn your head towards
the sun through the trees and I learned to breathe
in the moments you said my name.

Your hands always warm and your face in the
place where my arms meet my softer parts:
In the mornings I watched the sun sweep over you

naked and trembling like a blanket over a sleeping child.
I'd give up the moon to see that now, me smiling,
buried in your hair like soft earth.

Your mouth still mine in it's perfection.
But now here I wake, alone under the sky
reaching south left with the taste of stale wine

and these awful love poems.

I want the beauty here to become me;
let my miles of selfishness wash over
you like a plague.
All of you with pretty eyes and legs
like road signs pointing home,

let you know no solace from my
longing.

I.

I watch your legs
kick themselves in
front of you like the
long black arms of
the night: they lie
graciously on the
the horrible earth to
catch you softly
and to never ask you
why.

II.

my softer parts screaming upward
doing signs of crosses I have
not seen in decades dead:

your merciless legs beat upon the
ground as I ride you, spur-
footed and untrained.

our language is the language of
muscle-painted bone. My hands
gripping your brown mane that

I have now stolen from the
unrefined wind, however sweet his
mouth, today, I will gladly die in

your carbon dioxide to drink your
sour breath. The first afternoon
winter slept in, I mounted you

under the apricot tree. Your
hind legs shook from the
awkward weight and we ran

together in that quivering hardness
into the stable in which you slept.
Hearing only the symphony of

breathing broken with the
greedy hands of the wind.

I write this as you sleep beside me.
Your breath is shallow and 
I can hear the wind through the thin glass
window your bed lives against. 
As you dream you make such wonderful sounds
Not so much words but sounds and
vocal gestures. One hand on my back
and the other on my beer belly,
I smile in the dark and dream of
Prometheus and his holy fire. I beg
him to keep his brightness out;
Just one more moment in the dark, 
Just one more twitch in your sleep
as I turn my head
to kiss your hairline as you 
breathe.