I have decided that my main problem is lack of touch. Sliding my legs under my blankets makes me shiver. I feel phantom hands on my waist constantly. My neck bows on its own and craves a hand to force it.

Please someone bring me their fingers. Graze me in a crowd. Push me, hit me, kick me--just as long as we touch. At this point I am so starved that any contact would be worth it.

We are not meant to be.

Ships and their victories stay above the water, while if all goes well the pearl stays below. If the pearl and the ship ever meet, it is a victory for the ship and a travesty for the pearl. The ship ravages the pearl; the ship tears it from its home. The ship destroys the pearl. I am the ocean, I am full of shit and my blood is water. I do not believe in loyalty. Ships are to the moon as pearls are to the ocean; ships gather pearls like the moon gathers the tide and upon the whim of both the ship and the moon, the pearl and the water move. If I am the ocean, then you are the moon and I’m constantly moved by the phases of you.

You should have known better than to get involved with a poet or a pearl, because you are going to have to break my heart, which pumps water, and after that the ocean will always taste like me. When my heart breaks I taste the sea. Furthermore most writers are full of shit. When you read this you’re going to think I’m insane (the moon gathers the tide), which is true (and upon the whim of the ship), but mostly I cannot handle the thought of not being with you without having played some small part in it (the pearl moves).

Able (Abel revisited)

Two sons of Eve,
men, with large
hands and blood
like wine, sons
of God, favored
or sinful, martyr
or scamp, sit at
the start of the
world together.
One watches the
other with envy,
knowing that all
his tithes will be
rejected, while
gifts of meat are
received graciously.
Cain is unabel.
Cain resents Able.
Righteous, angry,
Cain kills all ability.
“Boys,” God says,
“if your mother
were here, she’d
be so ashamed.”

Ghazal Redux

We adore fresh words in our mouths,
but news is only new until you know it.

Take, for example, your favorite joke.
Recited until you know it,

it changes over time. When you offer
to tell it, your friends groan. They know it.

Give it time. There are words you’ve never
said, a theme sung only by gods who know it.

It’s said they hear us try to speak,
mimicking their song until we know it

by heart. Our father, it starts, and the spirits
groan. We translate so poorly; reap, sow it.

But I do the things I do inspired; you know it.
I crave you; soon your ears will know it.

Rapacious--aggressively greedy or grasping,
predatory, desperate like my arms for the
curve of your waist, my breasts for the skin
of your back; this greed could be quiet, like
when I slowly pulled myself out of bed so
as not to wake you, and then selfishly kissed
your face and asked you to ask me to stay,
or loud, as when I pulled you onto my lap
and begged you to have me. I greeded you,
or needed you or kneaded you, two cool cats
in heat. Greeded--"Hello, you're mine, stay,"
or maybe something like waking you up
with a kiss. Rapacious, or to be insane
with desire, violent with hunger; your
skin—your breasts--press. Two cats in heat,
who touch, who don't. My stomach grumbles.
I define glut and make a list of what I want to own:
The sun as it glances over your hair. The way
you steal the covers. The ache in my joints from
sleeping strange. More, your lips around my name.
My mouth is raw from saying yours; I kept it.
There is no denying it; o, greed! I am starving.