she said love the good man, the best man,
the man who fits into all the boxes
on the checklist of shit you should look for:
kind, capable, genuine, adoring...
boring. but she said love this good man or
be lost, be wound up in cycles,
be controlled by the fate of the lesser man.
love the good man or this other man, whose
hands are dark like tea leaves, whose eyes are
darker still: who draws you when you'll come,
lithe and lovely, into the palm of his hands and who
drags you screaming into nightmares when you won't.
with him you feel the density of loneliness when he exits
and the ecstasy of passion when he returns.
for this man who presses his mouth on your skin
you will be lit, glowing with love,
brighter than coal or the diamonds they become.
your heat will burn away memories of hate
till all that you see are his fingertips
tracing a path from your breast to your hip,
till all that you hear is the cadence of his heart
when it speeds under your ear as you wake him
from sleep with your hands, your mouth, your need.
for this lesser man you will become a lighthouse:
a beacon, a guide, a piece of history and geography
who, though motionless, still spins:
on again, off again, black, yellow, day, night.
your motions collide with his, his turbulence
accented by your revolutions, till his stormclouds
and your determination to be seen crash together.
the riptide will carry it all away;
everyone around you will drown.
there will be wrecks at the bottom of the ocean,
dead fish along the shoreline, stinking of rot.
there will be flotsam around your ankles when,
weeks later, you return to see the damage done.
for this lesser man you will learn rage,
you will learn hatred, you will learn pleasures like
lighter fluid and motel matchboxes, purple bruises
that flare and fade, and the sex that comes after:
long, troubled, complicated lovemaking,
his hand clasped around your throat till you see stars
and you think you could die for his orgasm but
then your freedom, your body suspended over him,
his hands on your hips while your lips traverse his,
the marks of his fingers fresh under your chin.
she told you to love the good man so that you would live,
and live a good life, and love a good many years.
but you are a siren, a gull keening towards a different heart,
flashing on and off, heat upon cold, sun upon stars,
wave upon wave crashing up onto the limestone crags.