In the dark screening,
a play of hands, your fingers.
Blossoms in his jeans.
!50!▪
Holy water: what
river: our shared bed. Blessing
of your boyhood sleep.
!50!▪
The backstreet behind
the theater will do. Broken
bricks. Bruised sky. His face.
!50!▪
Seven missed calls. A
voice message you erase. A
man stirring in your bed.
!50!▪
Gossip: your neighbor died + last week while having sex + with a woman.
!50!▪
Colonies multiply inside you. A temple arches. A rock
!50!▪
formation !50!in your veins !50!absorbs white
light, your veins !50!bursting seams.
!50!▪
You watch his sperm die
on your hand. He speaks. All you
hear: underwater noise.
!50!▪
Gossip: the woman + was not your neighbor’s wife.
She wore blue + stockings to the funeral.
!50!▪
You play with yourself
again, play yourself into
a ditch, believe love
where only lust can bloom, the o
in another man’s face, his bareback
!50!▪
promise of the ever-
after. Lick everything spilled from his quaking
tongue, his word obliterated
in your wake— the sore cheek, the empty bedside.
!50!▪
Gossip: The woman might’ve been your
cousin your + sister your + mother + might’ve been
!50!▪
the moon guiding home
a lost ship, the black sea waves,
the hum of your hips.
