When you look at me
look at me, look at me,
understand I am far
beyond fitness
for military duty, save civil war
(an able man, a son, stands
ready behind me to step into that role),
left to private struggle against dimness & disinterest.
Despite a certain
paleness of face,
color eroded from long running disputes with the wind,
& the vicissitudes of nipples placed high on breasts,
or placed low,
I stand resolute, unconcealed.
Stiff, wooden, deadly,
rising up from bone-white body hair,
replete with photogenic flaws,
deep creases where tears roared unchecked, unseen
by lovers who did not learn of places tears ooze from.
Shoulders stooped from years of carrying lust
across the dusty desert of indolence
accept inspection.
Still I, falling
down, kneeling, would
place myself in your body
& weep there, for the concealments of history,
for time’s swollen stretch between us,
for your breasts’ sweet separation,
for the fusing of the blood-brain barrier,
to transform blood into semen,
set it free
to flood out as if abstract
transference-seeking
love.
Into your body your
body
stride,
warring with your body bare,
longing, I advocate, to be whipped,
between floral sheets,
your body connected to me
at desire’s liberal, unrenewable end)
for vulgar truth,
itself advocating your wild other connections,
by others who plunder you well,
everywhere,
as I imagine reminding you
everywhere
of how I stood rigid watch over your body
your body.
(c) dark | 18 MAR 1997