"Jaded Princess"

I should have heeded his warning and kept my

distance.

You first were expecting corruption underneath silks and beads.
But after the kindness and obedience, loyalty turned too much,

too soon.

Perturbation reigned shortly thereafter until I selfishly took
it from you, took you, tucked in you, fucked in you, fucked you,

And then returned.

Rough and tumble lust didn't host your oohish afterparties, so I'm
sorry I didn't show and didn't want to show after saying I'd come,

and then returned.

Time in scarves and streets playing sweetness, but I'm a notknown.
And you were too, so I thanked you for your honesty not a moment

too soon.

And I reserved the right after the months' deceit to call you
a cunt and instruct you to maintain what was the most civil

distance.

"She's a big bowl of crazy" sounded appetizing initially.

epilogue

You keep saying you won't
___keep me waiting,

and I kept believing you
for the sake of finding

the gentlest kiss and
the hardest fuck and

writing them into a
featherlight sonnet with

your cunt for the epigraph.

The Journalist (Denouement)

Pools and Greens dropped to
pools of leaves hazeling after her

'Ineverwanttoseeyouagain' schtick and
kitsch and my 'we'llsee' promptly thereafter.

Months passed. Our New York autumned
a gentle adieu until her tacit disregard

for me bled into scissors snipping ribbons:
"Hey. I dreamt about you," she began again;

They were words suspended from an identity
since I'd suspended her from my mind.

"You apologized." And I would come to
apologize and whisper to her again.

But not without distortions, up and down
(spikes in) brows and lips, voices and hands.

Not without trekking Manhattans of
songlessness and abrasive diction.

Not without a night of kissing for seconds and
sleeping sexless until glowing curtains woke us.

For too long we had faith in our turbulence,
that dissonant musicality. Our silent smirks.

And after calling me "sweet" and "rude" while
thinking her a cunt and nun in two week's time,

I realized we can't make this music. We're better
off turning off the mic and going home.

Teaching Seventh Graders Poetry

Fuck the margin, kids.

Summer

I love this weather,
the objectification of those glaring smoothnesses,
those curves bare in the sunlight,
_______________the rippling,
________________________ jiggling,

voluptuousness _________of their bends.

We call them tits and ass,
we call them breasts and buttocks,
and though I know
_____________-I do, _______I know-
that women are persons too,
goddamnit, sometimes they don't wear their humanity.