In the midst of the night—
you put your lips to the bare
of my back.
When your mouth is agape
it’s the start to a cave,
the shape of an opal—
Inside your mouth
lives something to say, though
you don’t say it. We live this way.
Your hand grabs
at my thigh, my hip. You sleep
and I wake—
I think in the night, before
the blankness takes back over:
Lover this, lover that. Opulent
gossip, circulates, through
the institutional hallway.
I see a crow: crow! I say.
Nobody cares. Which is more
than fine— there’s a note
on my desk, reads: I’d steal a horse
for this. For this? I think.
Good God! Hazard Adams is
droning on about Blake’s
“thoughtless hand” being somehow
mechanic— like the seasons,
the planets. Can the universe
be mechanic? It bothers me.
Anyways, your
thoughtless hand— brushes
across my breast, the breast
I hate. Except you don’t
kill me in this poem— If I am
the fly, then I survive. Survive?
There’s something about me
that is falling fast asleep.
If the universe decides to take me—
I hope it swallows me whole.