from The Sonneteer
I.
My essentially receptive positionality reinvented as submission
except for the part that says I liked it
My organs tucked away each morning as a necessary clerkship
complete with starched whites and a pen and clipboard
Invented partnerships result in a heavy schedule
of opera and picnics
Especially because of, or appraised as "a beautiful thing"
though I couldn't decode the appropriate remedy of creams and lotions
There's the pot of paint, the pot of ink, the implements of my derision
or just the daily silver
A number of settings complete with etiquette
when I realized I should have been paying more attention
Now more than ever, in the marriage bed
or when your chickens come home to roost
II.
Memories of you are accompanied by the confusion
of one who knows that the conclusory mechanism is unhinged
Keyless entry systems resulting in all manners of disguise
nonetheless appropriate when I wrap my mouth around it
The daybook reveals minutes spent repasting yesterday's collage
though steam never fails to unloose the resulting total
God, man, don't you know that I meant it and this is no time
to put the spin on pretty baubles
If I seem insistent, this is the final call
and you don't even have a twenty-second timeout
From beyond the arc I've caught a glimpse of you
primping for the camera, tossing your hair off your shoulders
The property-owning class welcomed you with open arms
my cache is fading, I have only this to show for
III.
At one point I wiped the lipstick off the rim
but a flush remained so much as the detritus
of a memory more hardened than the present
by our insistence upon it
It was much this way with us
where sensation replaced flesh, image overrode form
Even now an increase in temperature is possible
despite our facile techniques
I can't say that regret is part of the equation
though we're rushing ferociously toward a equal sign
If I begin by breathing from the diaphragm
the esophageal tendencies are more so
There's a reflex in place where I jerk my hand from the fire
without even having to think about it
