RRRRRRRRRRR

I'm jealous. I know because I feel
an angry jangle of silver bells
upright in either lung ashaking.

Also lungwise,
a lungful of lust
and a desire to climb you, bright boy,
oh la la, look at you,
lux of the angels,
red of the devil,
toast of the town like here's to you,
You comedy athlete,
the simple game you nail down.

Didn't we try?
Twice or so. You were terrible and I felt surprised
at your fail, starkid,
awful to me twistingly,
twerpishly, like let go, idiot,
let live and like live.

hey

Don't touch me. It's ouch, nearly.
Get me liquor-ish
and kish me, crush a thought
into a joke,
reason out an affirm
from my ovalled mouth
and make out 'til you check out.
Check you later, how 'bout.  

once upon a time

I am the queen.
I am above you.
I am highness, I embody
the quality of heaven
unendingly up.

No I will not take my crown off,
No I will not.
No I will not allow it.

This is my palace.
A man made my shoes for me.
I liked him. I invited him to the palace.
I invited the shoemaker to come hang out.

He did not want to come.
He said, I am not fit for a queen.
I said, no shit.
But I am inviting you.
Come in, and behave.

I do not know how,
he said, lingering by the door,
looking back outside,
lingering.

Then leave, I said. Jesus.
He shrugged, spat and left.

I followed him in robes.
Others saw me the queen the queen
search and march through the streets
dragging heavy glorious.
The others watched as I

found his house and rapped.
He answered. He said,
My home is not fit for a queen.
Shut the fuck up,
I said,
I am the queen,
this is my kingdom,
your house falls under my jurisdiction.
It is fit for me. I am coming in,
if that is okay.

His shoehouse was bare and messy.
We lay down on his bed and were
bad at sex, I the queen curious,
him seeing the queen and feeling poor
he wondered what he could get away with,
the naivete of highness,
the shrewdness nothing offers,
when she left to use his bathroom
he stole and stole and stole from the queen

within her robes, gold, rings, birds,
pearls, china, lockets, hair, trinkets,
silver chains, candies from France,

and when she came back to bed
he raised his hand to strike
the naive queen who thought
invisible power protected.
Leave, he said, I am not fit for you, queen,
you see, I have taken from you,
and it is your fault.
Smack.
Stop hitting yourself. Does my hand fall under your jurisdiction,
you stupid fucking queen?
Go home,
you stupid fucking queen,
fucking stupid queen.

Stupid fucking queen went home,
I went home, confused,
the confusion of the child of the palace,
Shocked at one's own strangeness
and blindness of having,
robbed but warned, but bleeding,
but warned, but bleeding, but warned,
but I was warned, but bleeding, but warned.

power

He speaks without sugar, this pillar
of salt looking for a wound,
lone, aloof, a loafer,
his lean body loping after me like a hound.

I'm meek without earth, an Oliver
asking for more, to mess around,
alone, lonely, I relocate
my spotlight on him, invisibly crowned.

Raw knee

My lover drops on me
like an owl drops on a mouse.
I don't fly
unless his mouth is wrapped
around me.

Bubbie

Bubbie, fat grandmother o' mine,
I am only eleven.

I do not want to watch
Everybody Loves Raymond.

I do not want to be pretty.
Please stop giving me purses.

I do not want to call you.
I have nothing to say.

I do not want to talk about Brooklyn.

I want to go into your bathroom for a hour
and pretend my fingers are alive
and run them over the white and green tile.

I want to try every perfume you have positioned
upon the white doily on the wooden dresser in your bedroom.

I do want to sit on your fleshy lap
but I am wary, because I do not want you to grip my wrist so hard,
and attack my neck with your smeared and mushy mouth.

I liked the way your lips blot on tissue.
I want to use your lipstick
but again, I do not want to be pretty, Bubbie.

When you, a seventy year old elephant, took me to the Statue of Liberty
on January 1st, 9 degrees Fahrenheit,
you insisted I jam my hands into your armpits, to keep warm.
Thank you. I was so small and pink.

I'm sorry it took me so long to want to be pretty.
I didn't care. You cared so much that you yelled.
But it didn't work. I am pretty now sometimes.
I see now that it would have been nice to have been alive
and been pretty together, I see now, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Bubbie.

Business Partner

You and me, my my,

we snap together like magnets,

we sang together like luscious, 

like Silent Night, like holy cow.

You, like, like me, 

you like me, you're like me,

little soft thing, little smarts,

little woman, how'd it happen?

So sorry baby I feel unsafe still, my looks chill,

as a little bird cocks its neck

before an open hand, humped up 

with good food, and no offense,

it's an instinct thing, it's that my body

shrills that you strangled my mother! 

and shot my father to death! and 

plucked up my brother and ate him in joy!

yet you open up your hand 

all humped up with food.

I want to thrust my beak in,

but the body, the body terror of it all.