bondage
who be us
if
not the body
scabbed
by
words--
syntax
the
blood's
connective
tissue
this
dumb chattering self
just
salt into wounds
since when ?
since the accident,
shattered axle
and gas tank thunder, fire
sucking air--
since trapped in his
event horizon,
core
meltdown,
heart brilliant
as it burned
leaving
half-lives
since
my father died
I
like my women pierced,
my
men tattooed
a woman I touched lived only to penetrate herself--
tongue pierced,
eyelids pierced,
ears pinned back,
clitoris pierced.
can
you talk like that
can
you see like that
can
you hear like that
can
you love like that
compelled to cut herself.
I'm searching
for my energy, she said, but
maybe I missed it, maybe
it leaked out
red cigarette eyes
blinded on her breasts,
yellow
skin mapped by needle tracks,
face mask of vacant sockets--
dangerous
potholes,
inevitable
crack-up,
body toe-tagged, a blue
scar
on white sheets
so my father, tough son ofa bitch, WWII veteran,
carved my mother's name on his chest
after normandy. it survived the war,
the schrapnel cuts. it squirmed
when he took off his shirt
and moved
80 years young, lost on the freeway, he collided with god
most of him
scorched into nonsense
but the word remained,
story of his life written on the body, in blood--
tangled in his chest hairs
this is how the body talks.
without flesh on the line
there can be no intercourse
no real heat
no kick-ass
poetry