They Try To Erase Me

I never had been born. It was old hands
that sketched my frame. Hands that knew how to suffer
wisely. It was a gift
to my bones, a curse that shifts
with weight and time.
Clocks wait on scales to tip time. I am rushed.
Blood cycles through my life.
Old lines outline my eyes. I am timed.

I slept with a man
and was traced. He recreated me; my child.
My simple face on a prettier canvas.
I didn’t wish for this.
I didn’t dream.
She just belongs to me.
I drag my bones along aching seas
each step pains deeper with memory,
with time.
Dark lines shade over mine.
They try to erase me

From my bones, I cry.
I cannot be
an easy sketch of a memory.

Copper Loaded Love

A green barrette, a gun.
Good-bye, my lady.

If I cut my hands off, my lucky gun would fit.

I gave three seconds and died
happy, life is just a lesson.
You are thirty seconds to the grave,
I am just a prison.

You’re Irish season swallows poison,
we terrified your liver. Good-
bye, my lady,
I am drowning in a river.

Everybody is looking,
I have your money here.
You cheat! You’re a cheat, painting courage over
with fear.

My white girl, I love you,
with a dark and heavy gun.
I shot you up, a million shots
with copper loaded love.

Drink your dark poison,
swallow your tainted love.
Good-bye. my lovely lady,
your green barrette, your gun.

I’d Have Given My Toes

My hands are my agony,
in deep rage, threatening
operation.

They collaborate with mutual’s:
knees,
elbows, feet,
wrists. The Pang Posse.

I’d have given my toes
with a hundred dollars
and a last
fruit stand for
proper, long-term
use.

Instead, I have pretty,
throbbing appendages, all in
natural
spots, functioning
barely.

The Man of Steel

Man of Steel installs himself two feet
from me
at the bar,
resting his rusted joints.
The years have been hard on his
Steel bones.

He has a wife who is not made
of metal;
she is the ambiance of
a fresh bloom
or
a spring afternoon
and poofs her hair in the morning.

He wears a charm around his neck,
a talisman,
because a man of
gird cannot
move on his own –
steel is heavy!

A potion of spirits
must surely add to the corrosion in
his joints but it seems
to soften his supportive structure.

All the people,
all the people,
all the people want to know him.
A man buys him another drink;
the bartender leans
over the counter
to reveal her
gourmet mammals.
All shriek and snort around in
merriment and mirth.

Oh, what a great invention by
The Man of Steel! He almost sucked me
in to his illusion, but then I
saw his bandaged elbow dribble
when he bent the glass
to his cheek.

Men of Steel can do many things
but Men of Steel
don’t leak!