& here I stand, I am
The Hellespont edge.
The blue dark
Isn’t blue
Neither dark.
It’s the brightening
Shadow under
Overtures of light,
Glass palimpsest
Wringing the strait
Between us plum
As a senile hand—
Carpals, paper
Thin drip
An oil flicked
Tangerine in the
Distance. Keep
A flame in the
Evening for me.
Venus picking
Every earthly
Lump, plucked
Us off like sticky
Maggots, flanking
Vermillion cracks,
Swatches of ox blood
Coiling from the puncture—
Rot iron glowing the wound
Of a sacrificial calf,
Ecstatic in the snow.
Keep your body
A briny necklace
Dipped into salt,
Jewels of butter.
Let it hang, slip
Into Neptune’s maw;
From your lighthouse
From your night mouth.
I am but a platter
Of flesh, fine man
Linen sewn into
The imprint of
Your bomb, the bleed,
Every frothy bite of
The sea folded,
For desire alone.
Crossed your vow,
Sound, the promising
Whirr of winds
Wilding our wrought.
Ash, I clash palms
Against the tongue
Of night, ebb into
Flow, wings of salt
Burn. Neptune seeks;
mine crawls the diegesis
Biceps ball-ended
With brackish hands
Muscle strung
Chest heavy with
Sweat, worry bent
Around a peninsula.
There are as many
Bones between our
Toothy moons as
There are shoots
Of silver melting
In swashes—
Grey-blue belly,
Stones tossed
Across this strait
Of inky pouring.
The blue dark
Isn’t dark
Neither blue.
It’s a wash,
Posy pink choked
With cellophane.
Hero, across this
Sea is a whisper
For Ganymede,
A call bubbling
Up the depths,
Bone orchards
Anchored to shipwrecks
Iron, oak, poplar, once-flesh
Bouquets detaching from
The root. To kiss, caress
My feet as I reach across,
Reach again, again, then
Again with every stroke.
He yearns as we are
& I cannot promise
Anything except my
Body. Keep the fumes lit
& you may read, touch his
Want, ache, vast blissing
These thighs, this garden
Wall careening with ivy
He weaves strings, pearls
From me until I’m a hollow fist
Full of grist & methane soaked.
Sun-turned daffodils, pomegranates
Trace the heaven branch bent across
His rippled back. Ganymede
Is missing, this night lacks
A gored sky. I am a glimmer
Whipped across the night.
Beckons, your lit window
Halves the expanse but I am
A flame in the night as well.
There is a calling, I answer.
