The sides of your body
I press and under
stand the celebration
of all lung and heart be
neath your rib; I under
stand men who tell numbers,
read stars, and challenge the brushes
stroke of like, of She, unfrench,
red-necked and collarless.
Immaculate scraping of
dishes left by other famished
men, the crumb of you on my
tongue, laughing in your
small and tidy throat.
Kindly remove your
self and make
room for more
room.
Everything but the Kitchen Will Sink
I am a deaf man,
turning volume notches,
down
I sing because I know you
will hear me, every faulted note
though I will not hear myself.
I am the flip
of a twopence, or mattress;
worth less and
still stained.
What is Human; worry
and bound feet?
Ribs only twenty-four
hours barring man
from peace.
Who is Human in a regime line
that runs across fields fertile
from decaying souls? Hail
God, waging wars of
holy murder; Hail God Hail
God,
you let me down
to a womb, parasitic and
waterless.
I, already dead
of thirst, was built
to birth an ark; I
who had never learned
the names of animals.
A Picture Window
His familiar and crumbed
pots, planters so
sensibly perched on sills
who suck the street scape;
one elbow slipping is
the jungle tearing its hair
under the modern auto-
mobile, lust green, and all
that's ever been natural to
him will so wear him out
on the town.
Walking as if I were
a manhole, ready
to find him falling or
crushed already, to make
a cemetery garden down
inside of body with his
seed, and sing
a terror of epitaphs.
Copyright © 2004 Soraya Maciel
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