i want , i want

[infinite-trick-pony]

a Real Boy

“I'm a real boy, now,” you say fistfuls of money spilling out your pockets still living in your momma's house - “Real boy with a real job.” fistfuls of money spilling out of your mouth tonguing so many gummy dollar bills as you try to explain why it wasn't me leaving you that made you a Real Boy

but when you cracked your collar bone (the week after I left you)

“It made me realize how fast things can fall apart,” you say, cracking your shoulder avoiding my eyes fingering your money.

“Oh, definitely,” I respond, flechette to your back, flush with your skin feeling the buck of your spine as you at once press into and away from its sharp point.   “Breaking a bone can do that.”

Behind every good man - (is a good pack of lies, or what he tells himself a woman did not do)

[infinite-trick-pony]

hazards of the workplace

I fell out of first story windows for eight months to crawl half a mile on chipped glass,

burnt rubber in my nose -

only to haul myself up two flights of stairs, so a heavy-handed Henry Ford could spit gasoline down my throat and

punch me hard in the mouth when I did not give birth to a car

or some sort of vehicle, to take him far away from whatever it is that makes him shake at night.     Sharing a bed is no longer intimacy when you begin to believe that a mattress has a motor.

    If you ever come within spitting distance again, I'll light myself

on fire.

[infinite-trick-pony]

gone fishin

I'm gonna go ahead and go fishing for the slick-smooth sound of your voice. It is something like breathing underwater, right before you slip under sleep, or drown - you're always saying something between smiles, so I just might run a hook down your throat and see what I can catch, contagious or otherwise. 

You smile, I smile. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

half-way huts

I wonder what it must be like to watch your little girl

grow by months instead of days -

by benchmarks. 

My fingers fumble when I dial the phone, 

pins and needles like maybe apathy 

but more like I've given you so many chances

and I am dog tired of disappointment. 

I will check the phone book

when tradition dictates that someone with my last name

must walk me down the aisle

first. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

astronaut

 I'd like to think there's space for me between the crook of your elbow and the flippant tides of your breath; a parcel of real estate between probably-awake and wherever you may be dreaming   

The worlds in a rib-cage are vast. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

au revoir

Cursory glances somehow became fistfuls of your hair. Self-restraint is a quiet little animal that never learned to walk on a leash.  

[infinite-trick-pony]

fortnight

I think I will give you the hollow of my throat -

fill the empty space with something nice, lilacs or the fullness of your lips.

Words flew south when you said, "darling."

(And I think, yes, that is not a bad thing to be - yours, your darling.)

[infinite-trick-pony]

space between

Flex your fingers – go on, then think:

Young and bittersweet seventeen,

beautiful painter – pianist? Like you wouldn’t believe,

fingers kissed at each joint by Beethoven.

(or someone-something, filled with

so much fairy-dust

luck, love)

  She is almost:

probably, yes, Blessed.  

  “And now?”

  Yes, now:

Fingers knotted up like great roots, furled and knitted

like so many thickets.

(juvenile arthritis, because the priest won’t say it

mother won’t say it

there hasn’t been music in the house in years)

  But there is this kind of wonderful thing:

She, hands strung too tight, met someone who pressed his lips

to each sore knuckle; it was and will be

like a song, but more sound –

like a painting, but more color –

(like God whispering over your left shoulder)

  He straightened her fingers, best he could,

only to find each of his own fit the empty spaces perfectly.

  Love is a verb – it is not

flower arrangements, white dresses,

hospital gauze.

  Love is probably more like:

flexing your fingers against the space between what seems possible and im-  

  It is most certainly:

the bend, not the break

[infinite-trick-pony]

scope

I hope every child in the world has a dog,

so they know a better word for humility 

ten-twelve-thirteen years odd later, walking the arthritic dog -

who is always, always smiling. 

    I hope every child in the world has a dog,

so that they are not afraid of death. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

chernobyl

Sleeping back to back,

air: thick hot heavy. 

I wonder if you dream of warm fur or nuclear disasters. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

another, sir

What a goddamn fine thing to own your body, 

- so,  "thank you, yes, 

another please." 

Even in dreams:

your teeth at my neck, 

fingers

in my mouth. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

glass harmonica

You are: mid-20s, working your parents’ kind of nine-to-five week day at a dead end job you can’t possibly make a career out of. Your gender is irrelevant. You don’t know what you’ll eat for breakfast or what you’ll get your mother for her birthday, but you know you’re legal and that you work solely for the cheap thrill of the weekend.

You! Crusader of the hang over, champion at beer pong, ruler of abso-fucking-lutely nothing! I’m talking right at you, but you’re not listening. You’ve got your house music cranked. I can see you fumbling for your 5 o’clock –Friday beer goggles. Can you hear me? Are you listening? I’ll see you at the office on Monday, eight sharp; unless you call in sick. Stomach bug again? Sam Adams again? Jack Daniels again? I’m sick to my own stomach.

You break the surface for five days at a time – always gasping, gagging, choking, and complaining. If you are Christ turning water to wine, then you make your work a slow and agonizing crucifixion. I’m not a practicing Catholic, but it seems a generally smart idea to not worship false idols. Take the Grey Goose off the mantle before he flies south for the winter, leaving you down and out on your luck.

You are not everyone, but you are a large enough demographic that I can name at least seven of you and I just wanted you to know, John-or-Jane Doe, that you disgust me.

Now, hear me out: I’m well aware that I’m the daughter of a man who preferred warm beer’s kiss to that of my mother’s weary lips – but then, John Doe, did you call your girlfriend last night? Jane, do you remember whose hand was between your legs? This is a habit you are making that is not easily broken. Twenty years down the line, you will be laying in your sister’s apartment in her spare bedroom (because, John-or-Jane, you can’t hold down a job); you are wondering what you had to do today, because it seemed important. Empty bottles are strewn around the room, evidence of your gluttony and complete inability to break ties with your Grey Goose God. Some forty miles away, your daughter will sit and wait. You were supposed to pick her up from day camp, but the sun is setting. You close your eyes, maybe take another swig. It seemed important.

Your daughter will grow up. If you’re lucky, you’ll sober up. One day, in the distant future, you might have this conversation:

“Remember when? I was all alone. I thought you’d never come.” “Yeah, well… you see...”

But she won’t see, and you’ll be stuck grasping at straws. Apologies mean nothing and you cannot replace the sore, empty feeling of being forgotten. You won’t learn this now. You can’t possibly know this now. There is an emptiness that gnaws – the kind of emptiness that might leave you dry-mouthed and wanting a drop of anything to make it go away. It is unquenchable and sometimes insurmountable, but this is alright. You will find what makes the great cavities of your soul sing like a half full glass of wine with the ministrations of a careful finger, but remember this: the wine glass makes the most beautiful sound when it is half full.

[infinite-trick-pony]

loving a boy who favors full plate mail

When you found me, I was small enough to get into the cracks and fissures

of your mostly impenetrable personality.

I stood on the inside of your fortress and I told you:

“Look at how beautiful this is; haven’t you seen the stained glass?

Can’t you admire the craftsmanship?

Tell me, do you remember sunlight?”

    You don’t know how to describe the warmth

of every candle I’ve lit in the windows – but the glass throws beautiful reflections,

and I have made my home here.

    I’m handy with a feather duster; I don’t care about cobwebs,

I’m begging, let me in –

What do my lips taste like, four weeks old?

Your hair has gotten so long.

I miss counting the constellations of freckles on your shoulders.

    I can’t sleep without the ghost of your arm around my waist. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

contrition

"i'm breathing, i'm breathing," and you are reassured

by the easy in-out-in of your own breath

grip the railing tight, take that first step-

and it's always the hardest, the not knowing

of the next place your foot will fall.

    "in-and-out," and you breathe

it's the only thing you know how to do.

    without vices there is only virtue

and you haven't been virtuous in god-so-many

years you've lost count and does it really

matter anyway because this is a joke

    and where are the hidden cameras

and why are they staring

sweat beads, drips

    "we're here tonight because,"

and it sounds like Mass

here is the church, here is the steeple

open it up, see all

the

feeble people.

    "…you have a problem.

you have a disease.

we are here

to help."

    sweat beads

drips

    you wonder,

you ask,

"are you breathing, too?"

[infinite-trick-pony]

buckingham

Suddenly, every boy I’ve ever loved - circa before you - was not a boy at all. He, the entire collection of hims, are problems now solved. Machines now gutted. Books on a shelf, every cover closed, notes penned into margins with spines now gummy from age. I don’t think about bed sheets covered with air planes and indeterminable stains, or dogs that maybe-sometimes-once bit someone.

That damn dog always licked my fingers.

Your damn dogs are always licking my fingers.

I want millions of damn dogs.

Do you remember midnight and half-way walks? One day, you said, in the quietest voice, I’ll take you back here.

I want pockets full of pond scum when you marry me.

[infinite-trick-pony]

I hope every child in the world has a dog,

so they know a better word for humility 

ten-twelve-thirteen years odd later, walking the arthritic dog -

who is always, always smiling. 

    I hope every child in the world has a dog,

so that they are not afraid of death. 

[infinite-trick-pony]

If I could carve on your unloved hips the names

of every girl-now-woman who despises you,

you’d lose sight of white flesh.

    Much as she saw herself dissolve, a half-smile in a mirror – her hair

has begun to fall out in clumps,

eyes have lost their brightness.

    I lay still , can hear the door creak.

My fear breathes.

    I wonder if, ten blocks away, he exhales –

smiles, her thick fingers tracing

new valleys between his ribs.

    I don’t  recall, the nights I laid my head on his chest,

if I ever heard a heart beat.