I KISS THE FIRE IN YOUR HAND, OR CITY-BUILDERS
When your body meets my body
the world goes blank; we build
a new landscape— we call each structure
New New New then Work-In-Progress.
The pastoral lies somewhere beyond
the skyline. We’ve broken sweat.
We call each other “yes, yes” then
“don’t stop” then “don’t leave”.
We have new names, or our names
are new to us again. You pick
beetles and I pick rays to inhabit the city,
safe from extinction and then we play
a real game, where we pick
fallen hairs off one another’s bodies—
who’s-who— both dark and in varying
lengths. I don’t have the words
for what we are building. Not exactly.
But the buildings have purpose
even if they’re not all homes.
I am saying this city is untouched, unseen,
or unforseen. I am saying you touched
me somewhere I cannot explain or locate.
I call you you and you call me you and once
we sat on the fire escape sweating
in the early heat of May, we filled
our mouths with beer from gold cans,
smoke thick thick thick, bright tongues,
slick lips, fingers to suck like
hard candies. Anything else than the word,
we know, we should say.
Instead, we sit and listen to the sound
of some structure, a few blocks
down, get its walls busted in. Naming
it in our head New New New.
Your hand brushes my knee.
INTIMACY ABSTRACT
The cold knock of your hand on my back. The cool balm of the bed. A secret in the circle of my head. You’re standing in the next room, telling me something. I’m at the helm of here and not now. Once I felt so shielded. It was my favorite home. You say my name. You are in full command. There’s nothing rosy. It’s warm, but stark and blue. It? Everything. The door closed. A little click of lock. A cool hand on a hot back. Desire, comes for lack of a better word. It was you, who soothed the dream. Now, the air reminds me of the breeze! Once felt. A breach. A fallen hair in the dust pan lost. A finger over the shutter on Saturday nights. The smell of city-food rising to a building’s mid-drift. There is something vulnerable about laundry. Your red shirt on the brown floor. Soft puddle. Blur of parts. Yes, it is then. I kiss the back of your neck. Warm as an apple. Nice.
Say lover again.
Tell me what to do. I can become anything. I did.
