it doesn’t matter that she is blank
to you
i see her
scribbled in fine
point
so many want her
temptation
I am not alone
in this I have thought
about her since
childhood
so many have had her
some by accident
or not – no matter –
when she craves
a taste of you
she will have you
some do not want her
cold caress
stealing their breath
but others – like me
flirt with her heavy
want
zero our rifles
just enough
to taste silver
before
this does not belong
in a book
or on paper
it should be
blazing across
each existential universe
your immaculate
humility stumbles
my gesture
bathe me in
every movement
that has made
you a man
every echo
is wild
pulsating
carnal
I am
inside my chest, a universe
is born – yet to be touched
by hands of The Creator
he drives over city limits
lips openly rested
tongue saturated with
thoughts of fresh
female
sentiment
one particular body
conception happened
a seed was planted
it took root
in salty palmed
memories
I never have left this desert
where my heart started
he knows I can –
I will be his shadow
I can’t have you come back like August
without water. Your limbs shriveled and
cracking, bare knuckled,
moving like a tree
away from fire.
We built moons in the back of Cadillac’s,
coffee black leather seats
trimmed back – to make
room for the
others.
I wore thorns under my skirt, then.
I let the pure taste rise from your voice
and settle on the rhythm that
rocked us into daylight.
For you, sound lined up
and agreed with me.
You will come back like August always does;
a dirty deed to compliment me,
to bring me to naught!
But, the moon sails on
and without it,
I cannot.
Hunger drips down her lips
with metallic intent;
the air is busy,
and unfortunate.
I follow her startled shadow
across the sky, where she carves
her birth,
adjusts her lie.
I am an untruth,
a moment of virtue,
a black sheep stretched
over her flowering plateau.
This is no place for love,
or for night,
or for sky.
This is a burial of the
sick compromise
of her and I.
I have more than I am worth
when you come in three’s .
I sleep like a fish on a hook,
but only on the outside.
Inside, I am writhing with
want,
need,
gripping my thighs on to everything.
It has been one year and a hundred days
since I saw your fingertips
but I keep that to myself.
Time has stolen us longer before.
Remember?
Remember those black days?
Remember cigarette ash stains at the bottom of
beer cans, while a thin man drummed
and you drove us away?
We never went anywhere, but to sleep.
I took the backseat
while you drove off into distance,
into caves.
When I awoke, I found myself alone,
but I found myself,
and you,
came back to me in three.
Your fingertips teasing me while I sleep,
like a fish on a hook.
Outside, but
you are in.
…and where did you meet her? On
Scottish streets? In a chic bakery?
Did she La-Dee-Dah in silk
stockings?
Her name is Wife. I know about her.
Past lovers speak of
her
treachery. They brought her in on
ropes twisted from her
French Scarves, tied her to their clumsy
belts.
They never replaced their belts…
or their shoes! Walking on old, worn soles.
Treading cautiously, as one step might
shred a shoe at its seams.
Each lover gave me permission to
remove their dirty
belt at night, doors holding off
Wives for the night.
Morning brought them back with vengeance. As belts
climbed
back on vacillating hips, claiming
ownership,
an old Wife would
strike! Agitated clouds would roll in, graying their eyes.
A former storm taking them back
to when they met her.
And she will take you away, too. Back to
dirty streets of Scotland,
to poison you
with silk stockings.
We cooked, cooked together
smashed meat with boulders and fried it
on rocks. We drilled into eggs and
drank the yolk from it’s own shell.
We smiled at each other with leftovers
in our teeth…
I grated peanuts into piles of peanut dust behind my back, while
he played a song that
reminded him of me.
The music tickled on and he sang
and we sang together. We danced and we
danced together.
To the piano, we were not graceful
but the drums could tell we that we were delicate
and practiced; together.
My hand clutched the peanut dust tightly as
he held, held tightly onto my waist.
He spun me around to
face him, our eyes met.
He closed his eyes, we closed them together.
He leaned in to kiss me.
I leaned my lips to my hand and blew, blew
the dust in his face.
He was stunned – breathless. Choking, he fell to the floor, tears
puddling in his eyes and he cried,
we cried together.
The lampshade walked in the house
covered with dirt and cobwebs.
It had spent a few years in purgatory,
with tools, hoses, and rusty chains. It
infiltrated
my nostrils with the hardy
scent of automotive oil.
It walked out the day that he did. Hand-in-hand,
they stepped on clouds, right over my head they
stomped! The heavy weather came
pouring down on
my head. Lightning struck
me so hard that I couldn’t
move or breathe for…two years at least!
I just stood. Struck into that moment.
Recently, I saw him walking back. He
noticed that I stood still; staring in his direction.
He took my hand and guided me out from
beneath the clouds and he sat me down on the couch.
That was when the lampshade walked in. Covered
in the filth that I stared at for so long.
I pulled out the vacuum and sucked the
grit out of the shade, polished it and handed it to him.
I watched him set up the base of the lamp and helped
him search for a brand new lightbulb. One had been
sitting around for just this occasion.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 