I

Grandmother,
your rouge is reminiscent of
something
caked and cracked, laying in the grass.
Hiking up the ivy and through the thistle, Stonehenge would sink all the less
in our own muck.
This pail is brimming with our wishes
and the metal grows cold beneath
searching fingers, tugging
pulling
a stretched rope, wire,
skin.

Summer
is between my toes. Drip down chins,
dribble along,
I am all too refreshed from your juices (and these melons are ripe to bursting).
Winter
induces all of your (my) shivers,
turns us into a crack
in the stones that we mustn’t step on if our mother’s matter.
A hibernation among the bones
of the soldiers and their armory
(holding that solitary refrigeration down,
down,
past these toes that tremble at the depth
of a kiss).


II

Tuesday morning, the glint off of the glass
of your steed fell upon my eye.
The roar of the creatures underneath us, the whipping
of tresses
that land in a mouth, slip between grasps,
tumble down a tower.
Let me in.
To ravish or to save? To yearn for
tales of
smiles that don’t stretch to eyes,
wickedness
princesses and the boogeyman pouncing/
leaping out of every closet in a navy pencil skirt. Out the window. On the highway.

The drive down Route 1
and the stones were in want of slamming
breaks, a wave
the foam frothing and dribbling down the sides of my coffee mug.
At breakfast, pancakes were served with orchids.
No matter how hard we try, the image of
Cattleya
won’t find it’s way. That is not what all flowers
are (a way into the blue in your straw hat. A swim in the cup. Sunglasses
shall be a decent substitute for these convictions).
The motel along 23rd with the ferns in the lobby. A wax coating.
They’ve been there a while.
The dog can’t bark fast enough to pull everybody up the well.


III

And we
can’t help but stumble over each other. This dance
fumbling
eyes, feet, lips, thighs. As a child
in the sandbox, I heard a lot of mention of Heathcliff. I wondered
if it was a thing that entwined itself with the vines
along the bricks. Up my leg,
trembling my toes.
(wriggling about, those seasons
at the checkered cloth of barbeques. What was roasting?).
In being a man, a woman, a
something
I dip the ladle down that structure over and
over again, rippling that skim top and
letting the cool liquids of eyes slide down my throat. Thirst.
Want.
Cast iron Lincolns into the air, in a hole in the ground. Cast myself.

I feel as if backyards are more telling, but
they always seem to be obscured by a fence in the
nicer neighborhoods. Now
that we own that suit (that hat, that boogeyman)
it might be best to gallop towards the sea.