on my back on a towel

in the steam room

sweaty and malleable

moisture gathers

around my bush

trickles

down my ass.

there’s nothing erotic about it

except for the knowledge

the painter wouldn’t want me this way.

sweaty. malleable.

i promised the painter

i wouldn’t write about him

but that’s not what this is

is it? a poem is never about

anything

except the person writing it.

obviously that’s not true

for everyone but for me

my poems don’t amount to much

i had one about men and women

and it went over well

at open mics

but i felt like a fraud bc

i don’t believe in the badness

of all men or the goodness of all women

or even men and women, really.

i believe in femininity and masculinity

how everybody’s got a little

of both. i think. i don’t know

enough about anything to have strong

opinions. i am easily swayed.

mostly i don’t care.

anyway, i write about myself.

whoever she is.

 

*

slade asks “what’s good?”

“broken hearted and baking”

i say “i made a tart it fell apart”

i say “in a dream you and i

fought off a black dog

in a swamp, a prankster god”

“so full of meaning!” he says

i remember the part of the dream i forgot

that the painter let me suck his dick

so i could show him how much i care.

 

*

on my back

in the steam room

moisture gathers under my tits

tickles my ribs

rivulets

i remember

two abortions

at 21 and 23

i think of pregnancy

all the time

fondly recall the nausea

blooming

the glow

and also recall the walk

with the dog

after the worst of the first

had passed.

i was home alone and she

didn’t cry

most of the day

and when she did

i felt okay

enough to put her on her leash

and wander the parking lot.

but the pain i don’t think of

haven’t thought of

since it happened.

it was like waves

made worse

by disorienting opioids

like waves

against rocks

like being a wave

crashing against a rock

or like being a being

trapped in a wave

crashing against a rock

then being dragged

back out

by a wave

a kinder wave

whose violence was minimized

in comparison to the wave

who crashed me against the rock

but who was still

i mean really

the same wave that would crash

because it was the same ocean

the same ocean of pain

a pain i didn’t think about

for seven years

until i broke up with the painter

 

*

is it sadness

or self pity?

i miss the painter

even though laura says “you've been questioning

your goodness for weeks”

even though jessie says “if someone was treating one of your friends like this

you would tell them to end it”

even though my neck tightened

frozen like a river

and no matter how the painter touched me

i couldn’t come loose.

self pity

i’m needy

i’m clingy

too much and not enough

the black dog bounding out of the swamp

in the dream slade says “oh

that’s stan”

and we let him bite our left arms

so we can punch him with our right

until he dissolves into the mist

then we hear him barking

and see him running

and put our left arms out

 

*

annesophie tells me to reach

towards the mirrored wall

roll my shoulders down my back

turn my chest towards the ceiling

keep the deep bend in my knee.

i grow longer

when i think about the word

longing

i think about stretching

some muscle that i can’t control

that reaches through my chest

and up my throat

and out towards

whatever, whoever

the painter, right now

but in general

home, wherever else

the word

longing

in the etymological app on my phone:

“yearning

eager desire

craving”

from the old english

langung

“weariness

sadness

dejection”

verbal noun from long.

long is more complicated

with more words to describe

its meaning like

“having a great linear extent”

like “tall, lasting”

like “distant, remote”

like “perpetual”

“in reference

to time ‘drawn out in duration’

with overtones of ‘serious’”

when i think of the word

longing

think of putty

pink and supple

squishy and smelling

like an eraser

turning between my fingers

into the thinnest threads

and sticking

eventually

so bad

in my hair

i have to cut it out

 

*

this is not a good poem.

in the sense that a poem should be

interesting, linguistically

doing something, politically

full of images, metonymy

whatever. (but i’m tired

of metonymy. i want the things

in my life to be the things

in my life. i want the people

to be themselves

not my ghosts.)

this is not the kind of poem

i write, or wrote, when i was

writing poems. i call myself

a poet but when i stand up

and read into a microphone

i am reading someone else’s work.

she is younger than me

and lives in a different house.

things feel new to her

exciting and that’s reflected

in her language. her work

is fun to read into a microphone.

she read a lot. she had time.

she was in school, where she

likes to be, racking up debt

that i now carry. i do not

resent her my burden. i do resent

the school, but not

the adjuncts. i resent the tenured

faculty. i do not resent

the painter his desire to

remain unwritten. but i cannot

respect it