We wear the mask that grins and li
It shades our cheeks and hides our
This debt we pay to human guile
With torn and bleeding hearts…
We smile and mouth the myriad subt

Your smile, delicate
rumor of peace.
Deafening revolutions nestle in th
cleavage of
your breasts

Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
Pudgy hands bunched on layered hip
Where bones idle under years of fa
And lima beans.
Her jowls shiver in accusation

Pretty women wonder where my secre
I’m not cute or built to suit a fa
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud

We were entwined in red rings
Of blood and loneliness before
The first snows fell
Before muddy rivers seeded clouds
Above a virgin forest, and

Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave

One innocent spring
your voice meant to me
less than tires turning
on a distant street.
Your name, perhaps spoken,

I keep on drying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,