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.

American Parenthesis: That which we house in bottles would in any other case get thee just as drunk.

He never needed god
because (and who
is god in any case)
he was capable of
great love (and true love
in any case)
without outside assistance
(he never called in any case).
He consumed his
lovers, as though they were
small plastic (or for
consumption, in any case).
He said, "Get thee
to a sweatshop."
His palms felt fat
and hot but who could care?
(You would not in any case.)
His night's fast broke--
his anger broke--
his fever did not break.
(The drugs he took were wrong,
in any case). He said, "Get thee
to a crackhouse." A name, he felt,
was a sort of resignation
(wherefore art thou in any case)
after saying it the first time;
unless signed, it was not
something you could touch,
like god who he did (and who
is god in any case) not need,
and so he never called anyone
(god or you in any case)
by resignation or by name.
A natural grin (teeth in any case)
perched not upon his face.
A natural fever crept hot around this place.
(He perched and crept, in any case.)
He said, "Get thee
to a nunnery." ("Go,"
he did not say but howled.
"Go," he said in any case.)

Okay, then I will buy you this book.
It's a strong book, maybe, or the
cheapest one they had. Who knows
why I chose this one over another?
(I do: the cover reminded me of your skin,
the pages reminded me of your hair,
the poems reminded me of your cunt.)

I do the things I do inspired; you know it.
I love you; soon, your ears will know it.

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

Pronomial: as by specifying a person, place,
or thing, so that even in words you might know it.

The artless are jealous of your blue skies,
of the heart and eyes that let you know it.

I know the wind and know the cold. And
I know you and how you're bold; I know it.

Know me from Adam? In my loins, for one,
there is an ache: Thirst. I'm sure you know it.

Drop like flies: there is a collective strength
in our swatters, and they must all know it.

(So, to land a blow, she said, "I give
myself to you; it seems you never know it.")

"Untitled," Muriel Castanis, 1990. Cloth, epoxy.

There is wool over my eyes,
or linen,
or papier-mâché

And though it does not block
the light, I
leave it where it lays.

I am taken outside the limit
of my arms,
of my epoxy skin.

There are no stains, no blemishes
to suggest
imperfection.

As though I had bathed in buttermilk,
poured it over
my head and closed my eyes.

(This was when I still could see,
when I blocked out
sun and water on my own.)

I am flying, one hand outstretched,
the other
laid flat against my side,

as though I were making my way
through water,
through clouds, through deficiency

and deformity, through every freckle I could
have developed.
Not carved in marble--draped over air.

What they don't tell you about me,
about us,
is that our condition is common.

This ache in my back from holding still
is womanly.
The strength in my arm, held out

eternally, is a feminine strength.
The cloth sealed
across my eyes is a maidenly wound.

Jesus, you miss the way a good Virginia strawberry tastes, red and ripe and about ready to burst. This is how you eat a good Virginia strawberry: First, you pick it yourself. This is essential. It has to be exactly the right strawberry, and you'll know because maybe its seeds won't quite cover its flesh. (And boy, does a good Virginia strawberry have just the right amount of flesh.) The right strawberry is blushing and hot in the sun, but since you're hot too, it'll almost feel cool against your lips. Second, put it right up against your mouth. This is the best part; try not to use too much tooth. Pull the meat onto your tongue. When was the last time fruit tasted like this? Groan, if you need to, but don’t let anything drop from your lips. The juice will run down your chin and collect in the hollow of your throat, but you’ll purse your lips against the meat and try to drink it all. (A good Virginia strawberry is juicy first, and sweet second.) You'll want to mouth against it like you've starved for years, flicking your tongue against it like you're speaking Spanish; strawberries are perfectly contoured for our mouths, as though the earth knew that we would want to eat them. (If you eat enough, you'll begin to believe that good Virginia strawberries were what mouths were made for.) Third, throw the stem to the ground and mourn that the moment is over. Lick your fingers in desperation. You will want to seek another strawberry, but, deep in your belly, you'll feel your first and crave it more than anything. It is only in this moment that you'll truly understand what it is to taste.

after, and before

My best friend the stegosaurus
knew that she had been forced
into a before, by the comet
which was living in the after,
burning in the atmosphere
following falling out of its home,
space, which missed it dearly
or maybe not at all, but,
unlike space, I will never recover—
call it survivor’s guilt.
She was gone before I
and the other birds
could say goodbye, and after,
the mammals told stories:

“I was in my burrow when it happened.
Before I felt the tremors,
I was sitting down for supper—
and then,
the earth shook and got hot,
and the giants screamed
and made room for me.
After the fact, the earth smelled,
worse than La Brea does
on a hot day.
Before the smell went away,
not even appetence could make me leave.
After the carcasses turned to bone,
I started going out again.”
They left their burrows
but I could not escape.

I believe in shades of grey,
lighter and lighter
like my best friend’s bones
in the sun, after the scent
of death dissolved,
until the picture disappears
and all you have is an idea of
what it could have been—
what am I looking at?
this all looks the same to me—but
I understand the appeal
of making the distinction
between the antecedent
and the aftermath.

My human skeleton is wet
with my blood, a hearty red hue
oxidized quickly but subtly
and changed from that brilliant blue.

I have cataloged the hairs that
grew from my skin, the ones that brushed
the hair on yours when we leaned in
so close and spoke in voices hushed.

So for the sake of closeness, I
peeled back my skin, pulled muscle from
bone, snapped tendons in half. “I want
you to know me,” spoken and sung.

Underneath the skin was flesh
and fat, which I love and abhor
in equal measure. I threw it,
like my other parts, on the floor.

Isn’t it strange? Below what we
see is the essential; pieces
that filter and function, lending
power, all these unpaid leases.

My stomach was never weak, not
like my useless knees around you.
It goes first. The rest of my guts
follow. My intestines askew,

I move further up, passing my
oscillating lungs and your heart,
to the mouth that knows how to kiss
you; yours, unlike mine, is like art.

That goes; then my eyes, which only
see you. That’s a lie. It feels true.
My ears are holes: All the better
to hear you. Did I overdo

it? Too late, it’s all on the ground.
Moving hands, I fit my thumbs to
my bones, the ones over your heart.
They crack; it’s not hard to break through.

The lungs gather oxygen, give
air to the heart, which pumps blood in
the vain vagrant vague voiceless veins,
makes the brain breath, lets the mouth grin.

As a child, I dreamt that I fell
and scraped my knee, and when I dared
to peel back my skin to clean it
I ripped the whole thing open. There

was pain and curiosity.
The pain was unbearable but
I couldn’t go back to not knowing.
Secrets in my knees, in my gut.

I feel the same way as my lungs
deflate, haggard and dry and spent.
Not knowing would be torturous.
I touch the heart, arteries rent,

And begin to put myself back.
For the knowledge I am better,
faster, stronger. Six million
blood cells reenter me wetter

than before. Now that I know the
shape of my skeleton, I know
how to fit you next to me,
how my hands can hold and let go.

"Our senses note only particulars,"
states the bound lettered manual
which is teaching me this art I know
participatorily if not passably.

"We never see color, we see particular
colors. We never just touch, we touch something."
I have not yet gotten a feel for particulars but I fear
the good book is wrong; I fear that it lies.

Am I an anomaly? I do not remember
if I touched you tonight, if I heard
your voice, if I noted the color of your eyes.
I touched. I heard. I saw. But I lost my senses.

Abel

Don Cain told us,
"Boys, this is not up to snuff.
My old man thought his gift
was swell, and at no
time has he liked me
more than that son of a gun. Big wolves don't cry,
so play sheep and use your smarts
and fill his shoes up with the gunk.
Take him to a room with no doors
and plant him like the kind of
weed that grows where the sun don't shine.
Feed him to the fish," Don Cain said,
"and if he is so skilled at tithes
he will be sure to go with no fight."
Don Cain shook his hand,
let ash fall in the tray.
"He's used to the high life,"
Don Cain told us,
(and by us I mean me;
I'm the one the boss trusts)
"so he might miss the sun,
but he'll run out of strength.
I want him dead and gone, hail Lil full of grace.
My own blood sprung my own hate."
I did not ask but I did thought,
"Who are you, who can kill his kin?"
Last week some pigs were called to
the scene of our crime and
fired their guns and shot mine to death
and I am still a bit torn up.
I looked at Don Cain and said,
"I know just the thing, boss.
You want I should--" and
was met with a nod, and in short I
heaved a rock and kept Eve's line pur sang.