In Concert HallsAt night, we sneak into the concert hallsand stand up on the empty stage.We deliver monologues to the deserted rows.recite poetry,play a few bars on the grand piano,and laugh.Sometimes, we are lovers-you say, "You kiss by the book,"and I mime drowning, like Ophelia. Sometimes, we are warriors, or kings-ghosts, pilgrims, tricksters-and sometimes,nothing at all.Sometimes, we sit beneath the spotlights,or in the dark,and cry.
The PoetWhat artist staked a tripodnorth of Edenand caught the violence of your eyes?In photographs,who drew your mouth?the curve of lips? the bow of spine?What sculptor carved the moldthat yielded shoulder arm and thigh?What architect drafted the plansand raised the frameand saw the fitof corded shoulder and artist's handsof perfect rib and perfect hip?For she knew nothing of the poetwho wrote your heart and recorded it.
BeautifulYou are not beautiful like stars are beautiful, or like the mountains;not in the way Italy was beautiful.You are not the summertime-heat-and-languor beautiful of old stones and old squares, of Tuscany, and the rolling planes of sunflowers, of the hill villages—not like that.Nor are you like the ocean. You have none of its violence, and none of its secrets. You are not beautiful in the way that breakers are beautiful, in the way the horizon can slice the sky,or the way that, on a clear day, the clouds seem painted on a backdrop, slipped just beyond infinityand carried by the waves.You will never be beau
Love excuses us allThe sun caresses the spot where my lips just lingered -that pale field of pleasure just above your left wing.I'm jealous of the sun,so I press my lips against youand make you moan in ungodly ways.***When the judge looms over me, with white lilies in hersun-bleached hair,I don't try to fool her.You will not hear:'The devil made me do it!'or'the voices told me so.'escape my stubborn, honest lips.Instead, I stand tall.'I'm in love with an Angel'I say,as if that excuses everythingjust because love cannot be questioned.
I Love the Signs I love the signs of your existence in my space. I love the second toothbrush in the bathroom, the dishes in the sink that I did not dirty. I love unexpectedly finding one feminine sock among my drab laundry. I love the double impressions of our bodies in my bed. I love your hair in my shower drain, the books you leave on my coffee table, the things you forgot as you rushed out the door for work—hair ties, lunch box, phone. I even love the bloody white corpses of tampons you leave in the trash, though they terrify me; you should not bleed so much.And I love that all of these things mean you love me. There is no better feeling than disc
Imp She had found him in the dirt when she was weeding the rosemary. His little foam body was riddled with holes, as though he had sat for a long time in the damp. With hands caked in dirt, she brushed him off, holding him to the light. Underneath he was blue and purple with a small, fanged mouth full of vicious foam teeth. A little dinosaur or imp with a line of spikes down his back. Smiling, she put him beside the porch light, in a position where he could watch her weed the rest of the yard. Coming up form the sidewalk, arms full of weeds, shirt covered in dirt, she gave him a little wave. She was met with angry, fanged smile and a pair of
Sta.sh
