Your Way

Those plummy lips conceal sharp teeth:
quick bite: as if to break and take your kiss
and spit it out; a viper lashes from

the gloriously blooming garden: routs fresh
flesh – to leave a bitten cheek bewildered –
hardening another heart; the acrid stink

of skunk contaminates the magnanimity
of piney woods; the sensuality of August
plushy cloud – its soft humidity – builds

up and slashes electricity – the gash it makes
erupts loud claps and wakes – installing
shock – and one split rock: a wounded

equanimity; roses rot, lay bare their thorns;
purring cats will scratch; and angels hatch
pink cooing babies bearing devil’s horns.

You want the thing to go your way and oh,
my dear, it does: because it worms
and snakes itself not only out of all your

sweetest least adulterated dreams but from
your dark unconscious and deliciously
amoral, and sadistic, and illicit schemes.


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