after Sontag
The beauty ruin
brings is my subject-
less portrait
complicit as
imagination
failing me falling
dead atop my own
shadow or the sick bliss
of my little flinch
at an other’s pain
I’m a spy in the death-
house the love-house
delivering the dead
as you wish show the body
limbs arranged
for dramatic effect yet
such shock even as
this has limits
ceasing to feel perhaps
my story is common
you desire the archival horror
so watch my figure
fail for being
too human
the medium a dim flicker
of the naked bulb
baring the romantic
specter
swollen as a grain of rice
arranged rightly like
my heart mangy-
blessed by the loud-
speaker’s chanting
scripture for the many
gods
I brush bark to golden my cheeks
I lose my sight at night
I take the pills
to kill it it dies I think
I can’t distinguish
between frangipani
& bougainvillea
flowering from
novels or pink creeping
up my own balcony
like greasy paws
don’t ask which animal’s meat keeps me upright
I thank him
for making me
lonely but for
the wedding crowding
my front door
drums drumming—
every kind of hunger
the gods keep at it on the loudspeaker
we live in different seasons
but wake to the same
wet orb
I lost two organs
slept upright to drink
the liquid I drink it
still slow lungs
palm to leaf or hand
to love I love I plant the phantom
fear hoping you wont
survive your self I
survived every fall
from the literal horse
my desires made me
ruinous let me quit
the milk-livered king
pleasure takes me over
I can’t bear decencies
a call for flowers
but for to charm
the snake to play
I plant my arrow deep
the bull and mare
her head half-bent
in struggle like any
other entering
the vestibule into sun-
shade the gold-
bearing river
I worship with my hands
for the heart can’t
be made content
the gods stand
watching
