NOW
See. The lamp is adjusted. The ash tray
was carelessly broken by the maid.
Still, balloons saying love me, love me
float up over us on the ceiling.
Morning prayers were said as we sat
knee to knee. Four kisses for that!
And why in hell should we mind
the clock? Turn me over from twelve
to six. Then you taste of the ocean.
One day you huddled into a grief ball,
hurled into the corner like a schoolboy.
Oh come with your hammer, your leather
and your wheel. Come with your needle point.
Take my looking glass and my wounds
and undo them. Turn off the light and
then we are all over black paper.
Now it is time to call attention
to our bed, a forest of skin
where seeds burst like bullets.
We are in our room. We are in
a shoe box. We are in a blood box.
We are delicately bruised, yet we
are not old and not stillborn.
We are here on a raft, exiled from dust.
The earth smell is gone. The blood
smell is here and the blade and its bullet.
Time is here and you'll go his way.
Your lung is waiting in the death market.
Your face beside me will grow indifferent.
Darling, you will yield up your belly and be
cored like an apple. The leper will come
and take our names and change the calendar.
The shoemaker will come and he will rebuild
the room. He will lie on your bed
and urinate and nothing will exist.
Now it is time. Now!
Love Poems
