probably one of my favorite things i've written, and i technically didn't write it:


finer ship cento
A Finer Ship, V. 1

mother said not to speak to you,
but oh--the best fisherman is you

you dropped your body like an anchor
saddled my thighs around your hips like ropes
you have wind, i have sails
i only know i drift without you
oh sailor, sail me!
my dragonfly, my black-eyed fire
swimming in your inner oceans, let
us probe the deep with each other
if there is a place further from me
i beg you, do not go

i am wearing you like a country
i haven't the strength to carry
your hands the color of a savage harvest
your arms: matching topazes
the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body
that silhouette, a shape filled with rain
your scent
that scent of spice and wound
i'd track your outline while you lie down in my ode
when i'm with you i remember
how easy it is to be natural
my nakedness and yours
the hunters heart, the hunters mouth
the way we looked like animals
the too white teeth all night, the constant
fingering, your hands a river gesture,
the birds in flight
you were young again, young in me
blooming all the time

we have been very brave, we have
wanted to know the worst
and now, it is easy to forget what we came for
something dead or lost or unforgiving
i wont flinch and i wont blame you
i wont blame you
instead--
i offer you what is left of me
i've shown you my hinges
the raw navajas, glint and passion in me
a body that could cause the death
of a perfectly good king

we were on the moon
we were in the god
damned moon, we had it!
we did not stop for anyone
tell me, why did you keep me waiting?
i'll remember you with my soul clenched
in a dark and eerie corner of my mind
i'll keep you, as people keep
the sabbath
the way you looked at me when my clothes were gone
raw, exposed, naive, dumb
love uses you, and it changes its mind

i wish i could show you this evening
everything smeared with the color
of forgotten love
i will die in chicago
with your small bad heart
under a sky full of white camellias
& count the ways it could be worse:

the madness, that sadness of mine
we drifted for months and woke
it wasnt until we were well past the
middle of it, that we realized the
old dull pain
everything eating everything in the end

sleep,
let us return to the surface,
come up easy and let me put the
harpoon into you, fisherman

you keep quiet
and i will go