#13

My, my things were bad in September. Behind storefronts. And old schoolrooms. The turn of telephones to vitriol. The gerund always finding itself past. "Everything begins," wrote no one, in graffitti, by the lot. Such rash and blush. The stomache of my lover jutting over briefs. The slur of ceiling fan and rain. White violence, lurid noise. Fuck me, until I'm nothing but a hole.

Back then, I dressed to kill. Breathing was a sign of surrender. Proxy, indebtedness. Proxy. One crawls because memory beamed. Sentinel, and its fires set on floors below. Too ancient already to be hurt. At podiums. In triplicate. But what could I say? I told of nights so beautiful, one needn't even mention the moon. I sculpted mobiles in the bathroom and bled.

On laptops in closets. In cabinets that slide. In empty condos, lapping tongues, my ass exposed to the spread of hands and air. The watchword. Do not motion toward the night. The sitting, like Job, in repetition. Deface one's God in mourning. The souvenirs cramped in boxes bound for cellars. The inscription one tries to disown. Don't forget, my genius sang. A memory in multiple pleading.