you II

you are the unseen presence on the street

i held you in the hospital while you moaned for succor

your eyes are burning through me

the tip of your cigarette is visible on the stoop
in darkness

i burned you - i hurt you - i cut you and made you bleed

i tied you, i beat you, i choked you

you allowed me

i have been made a fool

my heart lagged behind my desire

when desire had finished its meal and walked off in trembling

the heart arrived - but you had already withdrawn

you withdrew into the shadow

it's as though the images of the love you gave

came through a million light years from my genitals and my hands

arriving where they belonged after centuries

so when i now come walking around and am humbled

my hands don't find you anymore

no one ever fucked me like you fucked me

when you lay in the bed waiting for me at the end of the day

and i thought i brought you from hell with me hand in hand

but who really was carrying whom?

little pippi - my daughter - my child - you are burning in me

as though i swallowed something made of flame

i long to see you in the street - i quiver to see you

who made me this way that the dark shadow could pass over my face

when all the while you held the orb of sunshine

who brought me out of clay and gave me breath that i could cut my own sister/daughter to ribbons

only to find - after

she was the one for me

she the only who could put her fingers around all of me