From "Riding the Absolute"

HOW I BARK IN THE NIGHT

Butter me up with trust
& the dilapidated expectations
of genuine love.
I’ll follow you anywhere to get at the bones.
See how my teeth shine,
(snout furled back in a leer).

O, I could tell you some things.

For example, Helen of Troy,
how a web of her hair
got down inside me, took fire,
& glowed like a lantern. I
had only to open my eyes to
keep ships off the rocks.
And Juliette (“O, Romeo, Romeo...”),
not so much her words but the voice,
a huskiness crawling around in my
gut like amenable worms.
And Ophelia, she knew better than most
how to twist a knife—or fashion a tune.

O, I could tell you some things.

Take Nefertiti, the historicity, the lies,
how they mummify but soft warblings
so deep in a heart. I have seen Queens
get away with every last slip of the tongue.
I have seen more & what I have seen
is nothing akin to professorial wit.
I know the stories when I hear them.
They are diligent, separate & other,
the unvoiced poet’s growls to confuse.
They are Camelot & Eva Braun in the
bunkers of Berlin. They are bad photographs
of timeless hieroglyphs
of ancient lips & too much thigh.

O, let me tell you some things.

To make a point, how Irene said goodnight,
how Ashley & Gwenyth & Winona say
“look at us, larger than life!”
From vestiges of antiquity
to the Silver Screen, so impossible
to touch, there isn’t the slightest sense in it:

Just a yellow-eyed bark & nothing left but
those few debatable bones sloughing away flesh.