I.
Squeeze my heart Ms. Holiday,
‘Til red wine flows between your knuckles.
Preludes-- women struck before your grip
Women with polished claws and plum-purple pumps
Gashed my cheek, and toppled. “I’m gay”
I say-- “S’okay,” they say, “you’ll sway,” they say
(but I never do) Blonde hair on sticky red lips
‘Til they puckered to blow some my way--
Calypso, Calypso, call your girls off!
Pick me up and down Billie. Vibrate
Your eargasmic cords, with voracity
Steal a heart or two, but do take mine down
Off that dusty shelf and finger my swinging vein.
(even behind high eyes) Remember--
Wet, dripping envelope, lumpy and beating
“Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar tree”
Twist your mouth into a smile and lick your metallic wrist.
II.
…
“Thief, thief!” she cries, meager, rattling my shelf.
I take my tea in rooms about, ‘til dust
Reaches her lips-- walking muscle after muscle
A parade, now lugubrious, past her pitiful pout.
“Do you look? Do you tear me up with your follied rot?
“And him too? How’s desperate tastin’ these days?”
I wouldn’t keep her to treasure (next to old magazines and papers)
If an empty mouth tasted sweet as her.
