I am still waiting for the lion

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

I myself should never have been born