By itself, isolated on this plywood,
among this puzzle of foregone possibilities,
his intact head seems to want affection.
Without knowing that I will do it,
I reach out and scratch his jaw,
and I stroke him behind his ears,
as if he might suddenly purr from his cooked head.
“If the voices I hear outside / my window cease I am kept / awake by a deeper silence / I cannot touch any more / than a woodpecker can withstand / its need for the sake of what / it receives”
Death might as well be my father’s pen name indecent hours ragged on his breath and I of course am his for knowing the night is no place for the softness even of an eye
consider: the [disabled] body as church
how its potential energy cannot be measured
The women are calling out the men
& rightly so. I’m over here trying not to make noise.
I’m poor, the only sins I can afford
Are handmade. Mostly I watch TV. There, it’s sex
& death—dawn to dusk. It’s 3D desire in Dolby Atmos.