Breughel

There is no place that does not see you -- Rilke 

for I have known those dark eyes, know them all--

when they refuse to see me I resort to geography 

the penitent lost in the landscape, the slight silhouette 

of the artist inserted among the trees:

heartland, I breathe your sunset, exhale your night.

the pylons along the shore, barely visible in storm,

are my haunt in the pink calm of dawns.

to feel safe along the waters edge, because I am not safe on land:

who could wrest me from your gaze? from the crawling 

sniveling whining of your lust? only here

I am a gull, I am alight in the blank space of my own heart.

the winds will whip me low and long, the crests and my wings

a blur of cold wet.

a magic in the meeting 

of your graceless expectations: I am hungry too, 

and I will feed you from my hoarding up of blood.

alone in the fields, stalks higher than I, and the 

gainless fruits of wandering: a tall flat sky to hem me in,

a dark brown bed for making. I dig a pot, a bowl,

a hole for the remnants of my flesh.

seen, I am carrion among the crows, dissected 

and refracted in a thousand beady eyes.

I hear your discontent, and am afraid.

we crawl from branch to branch, tiny coordinated limbs 

gross in the great, scheming abandon of the world.

I rub myself along the soft of the lavender:

a show for you, directionality, so that you can feel control.

somewhere along the sunflower stalks

I've lost you, your face in a yellow frame.

I think I am free but it's one moment, one leg over,

until I am at home again.

your dance, distinct among the rest, tells 

of your journey and weary desires:

still you chase among the blossoms.

still you gather, and make your honey.

you catch me splayed among the buds, wide open

and willing the sky to take a bride. 

you mistake my intention and I become

full of a need, a scent, a sap.

take these pages, and call my name forever -- RA

he sets the mug down careful, ceramic on glass, 

pushes it an inch across the counter to me.

I could make a joke about liking my coffee the color of

skin, your skin, dark skin, weathered skin,

but your eyes are tired so I don't.

in another hour they will be here, and our peace

and the slow climb of my lust will be interrupted.

we will start again another day, with another mug.

I do not want the secondhand respect that comes

with being attached to the name and body of a man.

for acknowledging ownership to the world, for

publicly admitting that we fuck 

as couples ought to do (oh I bet she can suck it good,

have you seen that ass, she probably get real wild)

I am seen, at last: accoutrement, accompaniment, 

the subtitle in this sequence of events.

take my name, and write these pages of yourself:

do you like how I look, and speak, and act?

it can all be modified for the sake of your senses.

I try to ignore the groveling desperation 

that crawls inside my guts: let me learn, I can 

do better, be more, speak less. I can paint this up

or stress it down, what would you like? show me 

and I will only be seen as what you desire.

you can bet when icarus fell, a woman at a well or
a girl with her herd stood, hand on hip, and watched
till his slight form slipped into the waves, and then
turned back to her work, muttering at the hobbies
(not the follies-- these we accept) of men.

somewhere in my dreaming there is
the sound of an aircraft descending, that long
wolf howl of mechanized air, and the screech
of rubber on cement. it leaves a little
of itself behind, latent, languorous, splayed out
like limbs of whores, an invitation
to some specific type of dusk. here in this
god-shaped hole we reach to each other,
you refuse touch, fingertips to pulse.
a messianic tide pushes up against the rocks:
the gaping of the crowd, when they see
the destruction, it will all be worth it
for the noise of that strong, dark wave.
the weight of you bends me over, bears me
over the kilns and the ovens and the fires
that make our bread and cups and life:
this is no rescue craft, there is no safe rooftop
to perch upon now. when the ravens leave
and the vultures come, your body will break
to the suck of gritty, receding shorelines.
the tide will fall, inch by inch, back to me.

And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again,
and said, Go and take the little book
which is open
in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.

In these revelatory times I cling to my mothers skirts,
tied to immaturity with tight tendrils of fear.
The wind whips around us on the hilltop and I see
tall thunderheads, green and grey, their billows and beards
threatening to waste all that we have built.
They menace on the horizon and I drag her hand
down after me, please come, please hurry,
the sharpness of my anxiety digging into her ribs and mine.
I drag her too quickly; she stumbles, small shoes
on a steep climb, and before I can latch on she's gone.
She does not even make a sound. In the true
selfish nature of childhood I do not look back,
but keep scurrying down the gravel path.
I will reach the safety; she will not.
The rains the storm will bring might find her,
limbs at odd angles, pale skin, little blood,
and push her helpless corpse down the river
till it beaches at my doorstep.
I will not grieve until it does, as I demand
this proof before accepting a fate so dumb.

Sylvia Plath was not a martyr.
Nina Simone could not speak her truth.
Simone de Beauvoir did not know our times.
There are no warriors now
but us.

Sylvia and her husband
(whose name is too common to even remember
next to the glory that was his wife's
furious articulation) Sylvia and
her husband did not find recourse in each other.

Nina, whose job it was to speak
(our songbird, our falcon, our peacock,
whose plumage barely hid the damage done)
found herself so unheard
that she uprooted herself, and evicted her voice.

Simone had the audacity
to couch womanhood in scientific terms
(the physiology of us becomes inglamorous,
our sociology too humane)
could only publish, and defend, and defend.

On the days when they draw
the noose a bit too close, let them tug
a little longer, let them cinch it in tight.
I heard the orgasm is better
for the men who like to watch.

in this little house the dirt floor
stays warm, the fire does not go out, its light
our own branding of misery: in this house
where blindness is our bravery,
we keep time with open palms on the body
of the guitar, bare feet and old frets.
in this little house we corral
unruly love, the wild flight of our egos and
our so-mutual discontent, for
what pleasure comes at nighttime:
I will dance, and you will play, and we'll spend
the dark hours grating, wet, against
each other. can I breathe that deep ocean, drown
in this moonlight? in this firelight, where
hell is real, can I melt with fury, can I burn?
in this little house I sweat for the
grind of erosion, worn from angry tides,
cast me as coarse as salt with your cold kiss.
you move through me, douse me, embalm me:
you and my blood, grit in the flow.
I crave nothing, create nothing, quiet and leaving
only this little house of tinder behind.

let me tell you what it is like to be alone,
she whispers, a hiss in the dark
like the slide of your zipper in the dank grey dawn.
let me tell you what alone is,
and the oil of it slips up into your hands
from the old carpet, 70s shag,
drips forward into your mouth, clogs your eyes.
let me tell you what it is to come unmoored.

she is bare-chested and smoking, her
knuckles yellow against the pale rises, sharp roses.
the free hand taps at her collarbone,
anxious, death rattles to sound out the possibilities,
her cancer not yet diagnosed
though you have cum in her enough times,
the tired womb of her.

so tell. you shrug.

she pulls a long drag, splashes ash into
the glass, two hands up into the mat of brown hair,
spine rotates as she rises, lithe, too young.
the dimples of her back, so impossible.
let me tell you what it is to be forgotten.

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the only flaw in her detailed plan
is where she wins back the love of the man
everyone knows that he's never coming back

there are no motel receipts between you and I
no other scent, no lipstick stain
there are no inexplicable late nights without me
when you leave it will not be for her
it will not be for long hours of skin-to-skin lust
you will not leave me with the taste of her
still fresh on your mouth and your hands
you will leave because I am wrong
because in my faithfulness I have been faithless
because my sincerity is sour, my words rancid
with disappointment and fear
you will leave because I lost beauty to cynicism
because I lost charm to righteous anger
because I gave up peace in order to be heard
you leave because I am hard, heartless, cold
and you are not

A woman is always an island, 2

at night the clouds, lit from below by reflection
from the icy concrete, take on tinges of winter:
looming and grey, they preside over a cityscape
that has allowed you to leave me again.
I pack on winter weight like it will protect me
from more than your loss: each pound a talisman
to fend off the wind, errant lovers, stray nightmares.
this last time, like so many other last times,
has a high price tag: when my hibernation
does not abate, when I let myself slide down
that silvered slope of cool, calm isolation,
you who have found me so unneeded will not
be surprised at how easy I find the letting go.

she shakes something loose in me, it's why
I put up with her, thousands of nights all the same:
she calls beforehand, a loud bar in the back
and asks what I'm doing, remember winter?
remember Kansas? oh sugar has it really been so long?
I know she'll be over in an hour, tipped
over the neckline of that black dress she wears,
spilling into the territory of midnight and candy:
she tries to flirt, cannot see that I am bored,
settles down on my couch cross-legged.
the up is in one hand, the down in the other,
and the pulse of her heart can't decide
which would be the better way to die. (we always
meet like this, in the twilight of our lesser
selves.) what if you could run forever, would you?
but what if they could never catch up, then?
you could go for miles, you and the sky
and that wholesome American sense of free.
what if you could just wind down, feel
complete and simple in that after-sex way,
just lay there with his yoke still on
and sleep? but what if they never found you,
couldn't pass post-mortem judgment, then?
I say, I know they tire you but the burden is not
your body or your presence. we cannot sacrifice
any more for their comfort. she ignores me,
goes to the back bedroom and curls up,
hem hefted over the curves, the curves.
it is not an offering and she knows in the morning
I will kiss her mouth, touch her face, let her go.

I met you in the rain on the last day of summer
the sun was lying, it would be cold that night
autumn had already blustered in, bright and rude

I met you in the rain on the last day of my childhood
we stood in the dusk, face to face, locked adversaries
and promised to keep each other's secrets

I met you in the rain on the last day of the year
stepped out for cigarettes, you were carrying
beer instead of champagne, I lit you up

i will never match you story for story.
i will never be natural in the world you made.
you and i are two different animals climbing
up the same mountain: we find solidarity
in the facts of genetics, in how articulate we can be
with footsteps in uncharted landscapes.
we speak in hoofprints, stark in the red mud
of this valley: where are you? i am here.
this is mine. you and i stake out our realms, but
both refuse to circle them, refuse the
anxiety of maintaining control. i give over
to the beat of the seasons: i will meet
you in the deep deciduous trees, green and brown and
smelling of decomposition, full of shadows,
and i will kiss you there like you are my only.
i will touch you there in the earthy damp,
among the roots, with my knees in the peat:
i will seek you as though the world ends in us.

where the mountains are drawn imperfectly
against the sky, retched up into the skyline like
little boys bullying, flushed with triumph
in the morning glow, where the steep slopes meet
in sharp limestone valleys, this is where
I will, coming and going, meet myself

in this safe, sharp place I put hands
on the layered shale, the bright lime, the crests
of valley floor that shoulder their way up
toward the heights, left behind in their
seismic attempts; some of us are not meant
to flirt with that blue expanse, my love

deep in the valleys the water runs
slow and sluggish through paths carved
millennia ago, winding among tall pines and
deep golden beds of scattered needles; this
is where I will lay myself, tired of travel,
aching from lack of oxygen on the peaks.

I like my coffee like I like my men, black as hell and hot
I like my coffee like I like my men, quiet and with a cigarette
I like my coffee like I like my men, any time all day or night
I like my coffee like I like my men, ground up and burned and bitter

if I am a part of you that
needs to be removed, I accept my fate.
go and pick your tree, out back,
touch its trunk and look up at its leaves--
what is the view like? and dig
a hole, long and deep. go and gather
at the creek a pocket full
of pebbles, grey and white, in secret
shapes only you and I will know,
little specials we will hunch over
together. if I am just
a story from your childhood
that needs to be exorcised, then
go and get the gun while I am still docile,
it will all be over soon.