The ladies of regret -

oh, these elegant women. 
walking quietly into my life,
with their gris and speckled eyes,
how they settle at my side,
how they hold my hand,
uninvited.

Do not cry to me companion of my youth, and tell me of the struggle
to return to whom you were.
The creature prints,
and wedding you hate,
and bells still ringing around your head.
There were choices when you sat
in the conference room,
when we walked above the river at night,
watching the city glint,
dancing with drag queens on Friday.

You were led away from your daydreams,
by steps all your own.
And you, with the well known beauty,
what drifts below your face,
currents of something even Paul will never know.
I suspect treachery at times,
delicious treacles,
interludes you savor all alone.

I guess.

And I know.

Fear motivates us,
and secures our seclusion.


But oh, the lovely.
In you I can only see pain,
ill-concealed, '
well worn
across your expanse.
The world has brought you much,
often,
soon.

Elizabethan porcelain,
without saucer for the overflow,
you live balanced upon breakage,
wanting to be held in a curved palm.

And when drugs can't regulate the jagged,
and the men don't rescue your body,
and your itches drive you
to cut yourself and drain,
I wish I could hold you again,
my oldest friend,
my unexpected redhead,
I am
ineffectual
to
you.

They walk into other rooms,
carrying my number,
folded where they will never find it,

soft inside.



GLS
6.12.97

the kiss that lasts all day -

he is my one,
though unpredicted,
this much I have come to know.

sometimes the learning is more powerful than the knowing
will be.

I have welcomed his intrusions,
and held him at bay,
and had no choice in the matter.

Eyes like those
brook no denial;
it angers me at times,
this helplessness.

Large hands on my neck,
the song of lilies,
the smell of linens and crustings;
I can taste the sleep.

Speaking to empty vessels,
brimming myself,
close to tears.

hold me hold me hold me hold me

I am just believing
because that's all you ever have.

And he keeps coming back,
through the sticky locks
on my heart,
and the barricades of the day,
and even the distances
in himself.

I need to believe.

Because dishes break and pictures fade
and stamens darken and tum,
and only the tilt of my head in the curl of his palm
and the closing eye
matter
now

or ever.




GLS
8.8.97

lure -

I can imagine what it feels like,
your hair in my hands,
rich and chestnut around my knuckles,
deep like this.

I like your eyes and your voice,
but to bite that lower lip,
makes me salivate.

You speak and I am thrown back to lockerrooms and sweat,
with adolescent moaning.

It is southern for me,
opening like a magnolia,
just above my teenage grasp.

Those trees were always below my window,
and over my head.

An impulsive little creature,
I made the boys
vibrate
with anticipation.

Touch their shoulders,
friendly, light, and of course,
discomforting.
This is the most obvious way
to start the chord
in them,

three notes

that will crescendo in their nights.

Impress on them how you would feel.
This kiss,
no other,
will make John move as a leaf on a branch;
has made Booker grow heavy as stone.

I am their Lot.


So let me feel your collapse,
erode
to my gentle lapping,
for I long to feel your hair in my hands,
taste the salt of your skin
as you cry.



GLS
6.11.97

the invitation -

Feel this?

That's me, the bad man.
I am here in your room,
behind this chair,
pressing things upon you that you never knew,
watching you tremble
In joy.

That is my finger on your nipple,
and my thumb besides,
pulling up
daisies
like the drunken gardener,
ripe on lust
redolent with pain.

Yes, my lips.

Tongue,
raspy on the neck's sweet fleshy part.

Pomegranate,
open for me.

Now,
close your eyes.

You are not unconscious,
eating my stubble,
beg for more in your
bowl.

Think of me in light,
the perimeter of a time when you were electric
with sensation.

Do I stake this plot as owned?

Gone,
like a groggy morning.
Left,
as you kept traveling forward.

The air the only evidence
that I was even there.

I can do all this without touching one hair.

I am the one warned about.

And I will come for you.






GLS
7.28.97