Category Archives: sonnet

sufficiency that intrigues

25 Saturday Jul 2015

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It’s the self-sufficiency that intrigues
me. All those small, little acts that add up

to more. A friend writes about her blitzkrieg
sex life: hers is a world where she worships

only her own rapture. A cry, a puff,
a groan, a lament, an echo, an ache.

And the orgasm? Raucous enough,
oddly musical, what I might mistake

as a miracle. That long buzz and burn.
I have never been like that. It’s a shock

to learn that my own flesh and libido
could be somehow different, that I could learn

how these small acts work, that I could unlock
such fire, that I could be an inferno.

honeyed

10 Friday Jul 2015

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I loved that smile-scar of her C-section;
and yes, that boast of hers — that she once bucked

some guy out of bed when she came, that none
could hold her hips still — was all true. I sucked,

hard. My fingers went deep, and then curved up.
She was far above me as I knelt down

in her mom’s trailer. She ran, like syrup,
honeyed. It was noon but her Sear’s nightgown

was wet where my mouth had been. Her tattoo
shivered. Her nails dug in. She screamed. This bruise

is from then. The TV was on. I pried
my hand free. Her baby, somehow, slept through

it in the next room. Suddenly the news
said that Ella Fitzgerald had just died.

booze blood words

16 Saturday May 2015

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Liquid devils; it’s not other people
that I’m morbidly sick over, it’s what

they do. No. I mean, when I say, “devil,”
I mean, “words in a text;” and “liquid”? Blood.

Booze. All that I put in me. This is me:
after the shift I’m left with ugly shoes,

aching lack and words. Without dowry,
all my touchables go untouched. This booze.

This blood. These words. I bite my lip. I think
I’m a bitter deity, since I don’t

even get the chance to tell you about
who died at work, that I’m wearing your pink

boy-briefs, or that nothing (booze, blood, words) won’t
let me unread what fills me now: pure doubt.

LITTLE ABOMINATIONS

11 Saturday Apr 2015

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Who died screaming, were pickled, placed in jars

with dull, defused light. Nameless, forgotten,

 

left in rows; cryptic as Venus or Mars.

Our sole purpose is to illustrate sin,

 

debauchery, and crimes against Nature.

Why come down here? Why bring your big flashlight

 

and sleuthing hat? What would an amateur

find here but horror? Love in defused light?

 

We are all someone’s lost child. Some mother’s

push and shove and sigh. Left here like a clue

 

to be deciphered by you; some smudge, dust,

something clever, which we are not … clever.

 

See? You’ll never understand us. Not you.

Not the one who turns away in disgust.

WHAT OTHERS SHUNNED

11 Saturday Apr 2015

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Sister, perverse mother, warrior aunt.

Excavating your elongated skull.

 

Proto-Neolithic. Bone-like bouffant.

Your queer bones. Were my ancestors hostile

 

when they first met you? Scared of the Other?

I come from a long line of primitive

 

hunters and gatherers. We turned trader,

farmer, and afraid. You could be massive,

 

berserk, lascivious if you wanted.

Now you’re gone, leaving only your ruined

 

skull, claws and myth. I live with mystery

all the time, but you confuse me. Your blood

 

is not mine, yet I love what others shunned,

be you fiend or saint, friend or enemy.

FOLIAGE BEARS US ILL WILL

11 Saturday Apr 2015

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With your mad colors, your multiple inks;

henna could only dream of the dark hues

 

that you inhabit. I’ve had my pinks,

my oaks and walnuts, my skimpy sky blues

 

and wash-out reds. But burly green? “Green, green,

how I love you.” Green is the underworld

 

of all colors. It’s Hades, the obscene

door to Hell, it’s the Devil’s swamp, all swirled

 

with the bayou, rekindled with venom.

Green is death, it reminds us that foliage

 

bears us ill will. Do not blame green for your

woe. Green doesn’t care. It’s mad as Bedlam.

 

Heady as wormwood. Cryptic as language.

Wise as rolling hills. Foolish as liqueur.

GLITCH IN THE FOG

11 Saturday Apr 2015

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[[“besos fantasmas,” kisses from your favorite ghost, darling]]

Kiss like an omen. Kiss like its doomsday.

Cold bled lips. “Besos de un fantasma,”

 

as my lover, a Cádiz ghost, would say.

Swell. Her ozone. When I lick her karma

 

she melts. Love has no rules, which is why

I’m so bad at it. There should be rites, witch

 

craft, blood oaths; anything to defy

expectations. I ruined her death, glitch

 

in the fog, by calling her only half

way home. I’m a lousy fish. I keep her

 

asleep in my small eye. Palpitations;

she wakes, crawls out with a kiss and a laugh.

 

I love it all bad: bad teeth, bad posture,

bad rites and bad Spanish teenage demons.

STARTLED MOUTH

10 Friday Apr 2015

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At the gym the boy in the stall next to

me has, “bipolar,” “lovers,” “medicine”

 

tattooed here and there. I’ve got vindaloo,

rice and curry on my tongue. There’s cotton

 

balls in my pocket, band-aids, a thing – spork?

Something that’s neither fork nor spoon, and yet

 

I can’t throw away. I’ve got stains, all cork

and basque, under my eyes. With comb I wet

 

my hair, smear the steamy mirror. My tube

socks are pulled to my knees. My gym shorts tight.

 

Bazooka Joe gum in one cheek. My words

might mean shame or pride. Startled, the flashcube

 

on your camera goes off. I hate that light,

that shows me exposed, my startled mouth blurred.

WHAT WILL BE LEFT

10 Friday Apr 2015

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Let all the lovers be consumed into

intimacies. Let the interlopers

 

play with robbed muscles and slack sinew.

Let the sea give me all its pink corals,

 

betta fighting fish. I, too, am beta.

The slack sub-boy who has what hunger wants.

 

I, too, have played with a cardboard ouija;

listened to love’s whine, its nails-on-board haunts.

 

I’ve let the outlaws in, they’re so certain

that the fuck that they give is the right one.

 

There’s more plastic in the ocean than sharks;

that is what will be left to our children.

 

And words. And poems. About Hope’s garden.

And Yahweh’s pact. And Rumi’s love dog’s bark.

ONE WHO CRACKLES

10 Friday Apr 2015

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Right at the down stroke, with all your weight thrown

behind the blade, my arms raised to avert

 

the stroke, there’s a quick blur, pale like bone,

from two small fists, and the front of your shirt

 

(awkward) implodes. “Witch!” you gurgle; the way

schoolyard bullies splutter when at last laid

 

low. We love our movies about gun-play

but the thought that a girl could dodge a blade

 

or punch a hole through ribs is called bollocks.

Physics baffles us. My rain-reddened fists

 

unflex. I exhale, luster, turn elsewhere.

I tell you of Doc Martins and mohawks –

 

– of a dim slip-of-a-thing with thin wrists;

one who crackles, like dry-ice in the air.