swamps, wires, sprockets

when I bite into you
I would like to
surprise my teeth-
with the virulent sting
and sweetness of a watermelon.

I would like to go back to you
for mellifluous pink and green,
bite and after bite.
and never reach satiation.
until I am nauseously full
and groaning of you-
until my tummy
is weak and sore.

should my face
start an affair with your face
for you to hold me up
to the lacquer of your nose
and the supple brink of
your careful lips
like an inflated tube
and let me run over you
in the pits of your hands
listening quietly for a tiny leak of air.

I would like you to love me
in lieu of my spite and shame-
and I would love you in light
of your restless spirit
and spritzing of discontent-
I would love you despite your
voice that is caught somewhere
between boyhood and man,
and you would love my timid tone
neutral and embarrassed.

I would like to tell you secrets
and stories of the places I've been
without speaking a word.
to make an accidental electric field
between our hands-
that we'd not even notice
the coarse tips or chain grease.

I would like you to break through
the barbed wire fence winding round
and round, wrapping me like a mummy
that caroms everybody off just in case-
I would like to shed my lacerating skin
like a lovely Key West gecko
in light of you.

after the city eats
the vitality of friend
after friend- and threatens me
like a manipulative lover
on a daily basis-
I part ways with acquaintances
and lovers-
and as we split like the cleavage
of new born cells and run
along the rutted edges
of our individual paths-
my brain becomes a radio
transporting fatalities-
the perils occasion like breakfast
bagels, with not much time in between
for sweeter, healthier treats-
she was last with Claire,
she's at Brigham women's-
the high pitched opera song
of broken bones and shredded skin
vacate my thinking self
tending the frivolous gardens of
small things and turn
my ears into perfect cylinders
running between the abandoned
apprehensive streets of a city,
on the brink of a hurricane,
the wind sings lonesomely
through my constantly
shocked and inauspicious spirit.

The streets and sidewalks
of Boston
are jarring puzzles.
They face their human
and mechanical counter parts
like a frightening event
of walking cubism.
the tumid roots of
ancient trees
break the asphalt
and cement like perfect yeast
in the crust of slopes
and hills-
turn the city
into a mean bag of tricks-
cobblestones chip elbow bones
metal grates take voracious bites
out of the heads of young boys,
the skin, tendons, nerves, muscle
coat of their forearms.
potholes pinch the tubes of
sleek track bikes- making an industry
of patch kits, stitches, 15 mm wrenches,
pumps, morphine, surgery and
tires.

I lie in bed
beside the pulse of my ear.
as my murmuring eyes
run over the lines of history
like clockwork.
they revisit the same paragraph
a dozen times
that hits the cerebral sieve
like a block of cement.
lulling me into
a guilty slumber-

who needs relatinoships-
lovers would call
this trigger line
bitter.
but i've got
a body that is
sensitive to temperature
as dandelions to breeze
and picks up on the revolving earth,
before I do-
I can hardly flush
the gut of neurosis
that pales and numbs
every interaction.
I can barely
fend in a healthy
way for these muscles
that want to know
and stretch and breathe
ambitious, alone-
while a jungle of nerves
takes off with the speed of a plane
on the roof of my neck
and every need
is stepping on the sandal
of the next-
how can I expect to
handle a constant lover well?

Panic attacks are real.
real as the light of day-
which is not that real
in the din of a basement
and the squalid inspiration
of a little grey cubicle-

Isolation is attractive
to the polaroid hipsters
propagating like chocolate chips
in vegan college hoods
all across the country-

who are rarely alone.
and swallow nervously, dart their
eyes down at the sight of
true desolation-

the saddest man in the
world on a bench
is covered in streaks of dirt
like the defining stripes of a tiger-
in front of J.P. Lick's
eating a small cup of vanilla icecream.
he asks for change
before the sons and daughters of big bills
meandering Newbury street
with overstuffed wallets
have barely set foot
in the door.

It is a problem-
scrambling for nickels and dimes
through a small sea of pennies
in a red buddha box. $5.95
when the dull faces of silver quarters
are the shiny eyes of washing machines
and clean laundry.

coffee never brews fast enough.
I always take the jug away
before
the dripping is done
and hear the little caffeine eggs
hit the hot plate
and sizzle.
fry and sizzle
as yolk would excrete the
strangled squeals
of baby birds.

Pacing up and down the
narrow Northeast wooden hallway,
panic attacks are real.

Panic attacks can be beaten to death
with a whole new deck
of vows and virtues-
which any healthy lunatic knows,
is a short lived solution.
shaved insecurities grow back in a day,
black and more brittle.

You can't think straight
when a penniless sunrise
sits beneath the marshmallow of your bed
Or organize anything-
make sense of material and political chaos
that does not
venture beyond the bedroom door.

Women are losing their minds-
Everyone is lonely.
Even the happy go- lucky loose skinned
thin, bamboo man
repairing light fixtures and aging pipes
in office buildings by day
for a four hundred dollar rent in
Roxbury at sixty five
riding an aluminum frame bike-
kerosene candle
on back. basket up front
full of towels and things-
swinging legs, smiling in the
cool transparency
of a Massachusetts pond.

In all envy
of a cashew eating, free lifestyle-
his crisp, elastic body
still leaves us terrified of living alone.
even more so as a woman.
Emma Goldman was right.

Cozy lights lie.
I am bored shitless
of the deception of warm lamps.
I sit in my room in the dark and let the light
pour in from the hallway
to dispel my Sunday afternoon
panic.

a trigger for ruthless, crazed cleaning

A clean kitchen
is a house of cards-

One abandoned cake pan,
empty beer bottles strewn around the room
like a decapitated instrument
from the heart of Africa

And the whole thing-
the whole shiny, pristine structure
comes tumbling down like confetti
in a windy, furious collapse.

salad forks thrown blindly
into the dirty dish tumor in the sink.
empty juice glasses-
spice the mound with citrus
and flies start to swarm above it
in an almost synchronized and hypnotizing
wiry, cat's cradle daze

No saving it then-
only the violent outburst
of a roomate's electric skin
that swears it can detect
bacteria from miles away

will do the job-
Fuck- I can't live like this-

A filthy kitchen is a relief.

Don't be deterred, or groan-
at a scrunched up ball of gold wrapper
from a permiscuous bar
of dark chocolate.

These are the temporary scars
of living-

A counter whose skin
is regularly composed
of the toxic balance of cleaning
chemicals- is a much more
quivering, timid thing
than granite or plastic
nibbling on the fragments
and remains of elderberry,
beer, bread and the serrated
ridges of knives
knobbed in peanut butter and bell pepper seeds.

Men love women
who crave attention.

Women who are ravenous beasts.

Women who believe
the universe is about to implode
and the whine and wail
of their voices
from the dogged trenches of their throats
are the saving sirens.

Men love women
who will chew their ears
and patience into human jam
through the black and silver plastic teeth
of a cell phone
at any conceivable hour.

They are less fond of a
shy, rosy dough
of smiles, complacence and charm.

Men love the demanding and contentious female breed-

it's really not interest
or conversation we want
from the smiling squirrel cheeks
of hopeful young guys-
it is attention.
it is a ruffling breeze
at the foaming, playful tide of my skirt,
especially from the
trampled and forgotten flowers.