i am a good idea

NOW WHEN I WAKE UP
I RISE FOR THE SAKE OF

A hand laid on another’s shoulder or thigh does not any more belong to the body from which it came — from this body and from the object which it touches or seizes something new originates, a new thing that has no name and belongs to no one.

Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equlibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to.

One of my presents, one Christmas,
was a Golden Treasury of Archaeology,
a book almost too big for my hands,
its cover illustrated with masks from Sumer
and a terraced ziggurat. The book's heaviness
suggested it contained a secret weight:
I stared into it, sure that some subtext
buried like foundations would come clear.
Heinrich Schliemann unearthed seven cities,
one atop the other; timelines graphed them
layer by layer. Everywhere
the unsuspected lay beneath the earth.


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on the last day of march, my body resisted the shape of love. we fought on the floor till my wrists chafed and the tears came fat down my cheeks. i hurt myself blindly and felt hands sharp around mine. he held me down until i stopped protesting. i stared at the ceiling. he held me to his chest. i squinted in the yellow buzz of the hot day. i fell asleep and my body awoke in an imitation of tenderness.