walk through a gust
of deep-fried air. Tear at
an onion ring. Peel the skin, suck
the translucent bone, animalistic and
alive with salivation. Take you to a grassy knoll.
There there, I think, as I gently brush my fingers against your
forehead, your head in my lap. Your body to the moon. I wait
for her buttery goodness to laminate you. Do you feel
the cosmos pulsing through you? Do you feel the pull of
gravity inflating your bones? When you laugh,
can it be real? I will drag you across the lawn, down the hill,
your body leaving a snail trail through the tall tendrils.
I drag you through the gravel of parking lot
where bright headlights blind me as I squint and pull.
Kids run around, cars move with hesitation, doors slam
behind and in front. I make my way through the bodies,
past the carnival. Your shirt riding up, rocks scratching your skin.
I hold your feet firmly against my armpit. Your body scooping gravel.
Your brilliance a steady bumpity bumpbumpbump bumpity bump bump
as it rolls unsteadily back and forth, back and forth again. I breathe heavily
as I drag you. I am hung up on the idea of breathing pleasure into you.
I am hung up on the idea of hanging you on a clothesline so that you can feel
the summer night’s warm breeze. Clipping a clothes hanger to the fat of
each shoulder so your feet could swing. I’d hang you out in January
if that is what your brilliance would need. The dead of winter. The frost of the first
freeze. Your eyelashes glistening. Come spring, I would hang you out
next to my tanks and jeans, and let the scent of fresh clothing
arouse you from your daily stupor. I am hung up on the idea
of hanging onto Nothing can last forever.
I am hung up on the idea of shrinking my body, of making
a slice to your toe, stretching the skin and climbing in. Of making room
for my body in yours. Rolling my shoulders against the tendons,
burrowing my way further in, sniffing and smelling and taking it all in so that
I could know what it is to be in your labyrinthine machination.
I would make my way around. I would explore. I would take a break
on a cell, pull the backpack from my back, have a snack — trail mix
and a cheese stick. I would take my time in you. Let you know
what it is to have more life in you. Let you feel the pricking annoyance
of my determination in you. And when I make it to your brilliance,
you would be sound asleep. You would drool me out of your
cavernous mouth, let me ride the waterslide of your slackened jaw, and
I would pray that you would awaken with the zest of knowing what it is
to feel alive in yourself.
Large again, I would watch you wake. Feel your matter all over me.
I am hung up on making this work. I am hung up on ridding you of
your scorned indifference, of your hauntings. How deep into you
must I go? How far must I drag you? How long must I lay you
beneath the glory of the moon? I tie you to a hand truck.
Let your arms dangle free so that I can hold one of your meaty hands. So that
I can show you the exhilaration of waving at a stranger, of
moving your arms back and forth to slice through the wind, to
move your body swiftly, to get your heart racing. I
cut the rope and fling you forward. Watch your body stumbling,
falling, crashing, crumpling. To learn again the embarrassment and tears
of a knee scraping. Of worrying that someone saw you. Of getting up
cautiously. Of having someone clean you. A tweezer to your knee,
a pebble removed. Hydrogen peroxide bubbling. A Band-Aid. A kiss.
When it stings, when it soothes, can that be a tender moment that you cling to?
I am hung up on the years. I drag you to the eighties.
I smoosh your foot into a roller skate. Smoosh the other. Push my weight
down on your shoulders, down on your hips, down
until I feel your feet slide in. I tie the laces, catch my breath. I
throw you over my shoulder and glide over the popcorn carpet,
past the slushy machine, onto the roller rink. Your skates clatter
to the floor as I set you down. I stand behind you, grab you by your hips —
Your beautiful hips — and we jolt around the rink under the
glimmer of the disco ball. We stumble into line. When it is our turn
I kick you square in your tailbone, your strapped-in feet
rocket across the concrete, your back bent backwards ninety degrees
uncomfortably, your eyes — your beautiful eyes — boring into me.
I push you hard one more time and you clamber beneath the limbo pole,
your body contorted. Do you remember what it is to feel this childhood thrill?
Your back — snaps. You lie — motionless. Take my turn. Take
you by the hips, take you by the torso, throw
the pieces of you over my shoulders. Unlace
your skates, let them clatter. Pad away in my
socks, try again tonight and tonight and
tomorrow and tomorrow, searching,
ravenously/pleadingly/relentlessly/
always searching, for the next
marrow to suck
and swallow.