I change the sheets on my bed, your visit
In this warm rose-blooming late November
A slowly gathering truth, imminent
A fear I am what you misremember
My eyes, my mouth, my skin, a catalogue
I scrub, I dust, I tidy, but myself
I examine, unsure, quiet prologue
Thoughts corroded, worry a salty delph
You call, your voice a silken growl in me
Intense declarations, desire reread
You smooth me like cool sheets, say you want me
Unhurried tenderness dissolves stiff dread
Yours, like sea on sand, like grit on stone, we
Hurry, slow dance away from elegy

November 27, 2000

The men are full of passion and ignorance
Like fireflies and bulls and vicious dogs
With wet pink tongues and eager, violent dispositions
Muscled and deliciously out of control
Like soul surfing on a raw white sea

Every time I think about going back
Losing the veneer of my career in the middle class
Like a cheap nightie soaked in beer and sweat
You know we never could afford air conditioning
I can taste those days like sweat on my lip

If I could scrape the ache of my itch
With their dirty nails and rough hands
And mouths full of gruff courses in love
Hot, squeezing, grabbing your need by touch
Feeling full and emptied and crushed like a beer can

October 28, 1998