i. smoky fingers curl around the heart-beat
   pulse-beat song-beat and wrench out the
   bricks one at a time
   the rasp of flesh latching on cement, the
   grating grinding of stones lunging out, and
   the scream as they fall in the dark rabid
   waters
   the building erodes in the fog
   the building erodes in the storm
   the building erodes like everything erodes
        and my heart erodes with it and in it
        and among it

ii. he has never known fear and that is why
    he climbs up scales up cringes up the
    never ending walls
    that is why he clings to the bricks as they
    are torn out and that is why he hopes that
    he too will fall and
    that is why he wants to erode because
    erosion is the melting, the harsh corrosive
    acid leaching away, erosion is the secret
    to a long
        and beautiful
        and happy
        and irony-drenched life

iii. gray mud spatters - no, it swallows - no
    it consumes like a monster, a monster
    with tendril claws and poisonous fangs,
    and it eats you with a flick of its jaw - no,
    it erodes
    gray mud erodes in the twin way of the
    world, gray mud is the thing that erodes
    you and your love and your lover and it's
    the thing that is eroded until one day it's
    gone
    and nothing
    will ever
         erode again

iv. he is covered in gray mud, and i am covered
     in gray mud, and my skin is rebelling against
     the cold slick slimy tingling creature that *****
     the bruises away, but he welcomes it
     he always welcomes everything more than i do
     and maybe that's the reason
          maybe that's the hidden reason
          why the world is eroding

The shower doors won't close properly,
and neither will
my eyes.
The water's getting in
The soap's getting in
The fear's
setting
in.
"He wanted her."
Past tense, I tell myself,
Let It Go.
And I have to, cause the water's
running cold.

I'm grumpy, upset, annoyed at you,
I'm in a bad mood
again.
Angry? No, not angry. Never quite
angry. Never (quite.)
He loves me, he keeps telling me.
"He tells you all the time."

I don't know why
I Need this doubt.
But it makes me need to
Try.

hush hush, sweet darling.
the neighbors could hear you tremble.
if only you'd cover your mouth with mine,
you might stay out of trouble.
grasp hands tight and
don't you dare let go,
and i'll make you beg for more.

intake of
breath
lines perfect
composition

Do you think that when first presented with
that enclosed heaven above the Pope,
Michelangelo stopped for a moment,
then maybe a longer one, and still more,
as he attempted to count how many strokes
it would actually take to paint that sky?
How many times his arm would have to
conduct an arc, from down to palette,
back above his head, again and again
and again and again and again. Did he think
about how the brush would stay in his grasp?
The pen is slipping away from me into
horizontal weariness as I write this, contemplate
this one single, un-fluid flow. The autistic part
of me is not going to be happy until it can
at least guess some sort of recognisable
answer to such an insane question. We can
even begin to construct a formula: x strokes
per hour times days times years minus whatever
the assistants did. Haven’t you yet boggled at
the still way-off number this crude estimate
puts out? If I was a girl, I would always demand
a portrait. That’d be a real sign, true effort,
devotion; not just some words scribbled down
on a page while he’s probably thinking of some
other girl he’d like to write a poem about, in which
in which she’s having her picture painted,
her soul pinned.

i am young and wish to be
younger, old and wish to be senile. i have
blond hair and wish it auburn. i have company
and wish to be alone.

there are things that gallop all over my
neurons and leave muddy footprints
in my thoughts. unholy things that should
be stricken, and i encourage them.
i shudder when i leave the shower
because other people have stepped on the mat.
my hair is usually *****.

i throw pennies into the fountain
and think oh if i had no money,
if i had some. i wish for an envelope
to mail me somewhere in northwestern
greenland, lay on the ice and
stare into the brilliance of death.

you had birds in your mouth and sunlight dripping from your eyelashes.
i promised i wouldn't speak if you wouldn't change faces twice an hour.
we made conversation under a tree and sleep-walked through your kitchen.
i couldn't stare for your poetry disguised as fingers, always moved your hands.

i opened your window and slid to the street, took a walk with the recycling.
my hands looked tired the next morning, and you wouldn't take no.
when the lights fell asleep, we ran for the boats and slipped into the water.
the moon smiled and pulled us apart, i never matched your shoes again.