crooked as corkscrews

How can I teach her
some way of being human
that won’t destroy her
I would like to tell her, Love
is enough, I would like to say,
Find shelter in another skin.
I would like to say, Dance
and be happy. Instead I will say
in my crone’s voice, Be
ruthless when you have to, tell
the truth when you can,
when you can see it.

He doesn’t know which is worse, a past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo.

this poem must be written as if you are already dead, as if nothing more can be done or said to save you. You must write this poem because there’s nothing more to do.

She renders herself up, is blotted out; enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries.

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye

If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart.

i.

We are hard on each other
and call it honesty,
choosing our jagged truths
with care and aiming them across
the neutral table.
The things we say are
true; it is our crooked
aims, our choices
turn them criminal.

ii.

Of course your lies
are more amusing:
you make them new each time.
Your truths, painful and boring
repeat themselves over & over
perhaps because you own
so few of them

iii.

A truth should exist,
it should not be used
like this. If I love you
is that a fact or a weapon?

iv.

Does the body lie
moving like this, are these
touches, hairs, wet
soft marble my tongue runs over
lies you are telling me?
Your body is not a word,
it does not lie or
speak truth either.
It is only
here or not here.