Poetry 365

It’s done; I planned, did it deliberately,
and wormed a place in you with some dull lies.
And now, does a hurt anger in your eyes
whip back? I’ll slash the cords you lash to me.

Cast off. Wakes mingled. O sweet piracy—
flesh grappling below rafters, cries…All cries
stop when rising depths choke your replies.
And then blank surface and white debris.

And so it’s over. Nothing…then the night.
We sit. I sense you lost somewhere below.
Depths of you move, fingering me with fright,

and the night whirls, goes empty, and I’m wound
down to you, weightless, crushed….O, when I flow
into you, fear comes, both of us are drowned.

Each gesture
is a common one, a
black dog, crying, a
man, crying.

All alike, people
or things grow
fixed with what
happens to them.

I throw a stone.
It hits the wall,
it hits a dog,
it hits a child—

my sentimental
names for years
and years ago, from
something I’ve not become.

If I look
in the mirror,
the wall, I
see myself.

If I try
to do better
and better, I
do the same thing.

Let me hit you.
Will it hurt.
Your face is hurt
all the same.