Genesis
God made the world with his mouth.
He spoke, and the heavens appeared.
Imagine a room with no windows
or doors (Once, trapped on elevator in Paris,
far away from everyone who knew
my name, I was free
to be anyone. I spoke
and nothing appeared. . .).
Even before a sun there was light,
God smiled and his teeth
gave off an ethereal glow. There are places
I can’t go, like the deep sea, where I could
not watch a bathynomus giganteus
emit its light. There are things I cannot say
like how the dinoflagellate who fornicate
relate to the dinoflagellate
who keep dividing themselves into two.
All power is a kind of force.
My father tells me when he was a child
he was bad. Nuns beat his wrists and slapped
his hands with sticks. Sometimes his pinkie
will not fully flex. When my father calls these days,
I do not know what to say, but I stay
on the phone and we breathe.
He tells me you know, I hate hanging up the phone.
Whenever I do, I’m alone.
The Anonymous City
Little fire, small flame. He tugs at the belt loop of my jeans. We let our bodies sway. I live in a dining room on Lorimer Street a naked bulb dangling over me, my futon, my mismatched sheets– I am love’s reckless student. I take copious notes. Listening to my roommate and her boyfriend fuck, I would open my window if I had one. But in a hotel bar, beneath my hotel room, I could be anyone. I say things to my bartender like you missed me, and we laugh and take shots and he grazes my hand. In hotels, I rest soundly, eating pre-packaged snacks, drinking small bottles of wine. All my life, I wanted to be close. Closeness, a dance the Hudson makes with the shore. I waitress at a seaside cafe–the kind where my manager applies more blush to my face, sharpens a red pencil for my smile. When I left home, wanting only nights where the night didn’t ends, to pass among bodies in the dark, to feel the love of sleepless hands. . .
It’s 4:00 am on the Q train when a man shows me his dick.
The cover of night is sleep. To be awake
is to be seen. I ball my fists
into my chest.
O my heart, my dove!
Who will love
you forever as you are?
