Lingua

If you saw everything in retrospect

What language would you hear?

Climbing through cumulus clouds

The color of death valley

Sand strewn prayers

Over scraped knees and heavy cello bow

You slapped me backhanded

I watched myself

Fall like water

Wet against the sound

It excited you to see

Blood on my lips

The outline of violence

Lacing time and roses with secrets

You look out at a stark dull day

Feel glad you have the assurance of what stands rigid behind closed doors

We wear bright smiles at parties

The golden couple, they admire our rehearsal

Like pedigree animals who mask their bad nature

I’d bite your hand

And he’d fill your throat with glass

The lowered sun casting a haze over

Our magnification

Teaching darkness to obscure the simmering

Hand pinching my thighs open, striking

Quiet match of fire beneath

I hold onto your dismissal

Like butterflies

Slipping and fleeting

Driftwood

Skipped stones as smooth as

Your tongue in my mouth

What language do you speak?

As you lean in to remove all hope

And pinching between wet fingers

Extinguish light til only the circumference

Of stars

Lend their distant

Glow

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To the bottom

Go down

very far down

to the bottom of the sea

I shuck you off

zip up my boots

think of corn husks and masa and chili staining madder root

lips tarnished from pleasuring you

friend without the benefit of youth

I make you come even when you’re done

leash between us yoked at the throat

pain has long learned not to show

as macular degeneration steals acuity

we are what we want to see

but you are a poor vintage

you don’t convince the blind

we who cover ourselves in your outpouring

know more of you than crows

lining hot wire

know of the sky