Show me the drenched howling babe,

the one that sweats
and quivers long before he speaks: and feed from drought,
milk for your too pursed lips,
dribbling liquid unhinged and warm,
and slow as breast’s pulse
through your spineless ear.

Show me the gashes, the scrapes, so that I might graze
on your skin, under damp covers where sound hums:
pillowed scripts, fingered marks; nose tip to shoulder blade
and fastened squints; tossing sheets and accusations
through stuffed holes.

You whisper to hell with the romantic, the soft
underskin of my thigh gelled in your palm,
and the stuffy foyer around our bed collapsing.
And then you sigh all the way to hell with the things you’ve read
in an old blue chair
under a dim orange light.

and I listen through the hum of the radiator
and the weakening light.