so goddamn this devil we made it on the bevel can't he break a brother down? so bereft and beaten we got through this season treading snow and headed south all these rhymes and vowels across creeks and cavils his blood can barely fill me now so what: they call us nelly we stay belly-to-belly i put this ring into his mouth
and i pissed the bed again and he held me warm and wet
and he tried to be tender but he could not make it better and he tried to be tender but he just could not make it better and i tried to be tender but i could not make it better and i tried to be tender but i just could not make it better
my bones can barely make a fire and i can barely make a fire there is no need for ten gallons of water the dirt in my head will never grow sunflowers i do not know you, i am filled with shame there are peach pits in my mouth again there's no science for it i don't understand a prick of blood a cylinder of sweat to keep you strange i will stay away i will get so close i cannot escape some fact is fiction, he is cleaning the kitchen shed sweaters, linens, some sexual positions can we switch instead, can we share some bread can we please never get out of bed sing a eulogy to erase our sins find new buttonholes where your skin could begin if your body's sore i will make some more i will clack my teeth up tight to yours comb lint, come less, check for burs & beasts starve yourself for weeks that's a bible, belt, breathe --
a body for every beard chopped straight and his book coming out in black lines on my face some dog to be bedded, his genitalia slang, see? he does what she does as they does (please get off me!)
this winter is a goddamned shit what about: tender! tender! tender! wake up hard, wait to wilt scrub out all the silk, and hug harder
you are too close you will never be close enough i know it's you with my eyes shut because i have left evidence on you all this violence in my head other words i would use: pins and needles
and did i really kill all those men in my dreams? well, i forget -- i forget and i wrote no words and i woke up again with my head in water
i tried to remember what it was that i had done she described it like a dream that i could not be woken from