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I’d call you Judas, but it’s a cliche,
And not even appropriate -
I was always the disciple,
Flesh-weak, forgiven and following,
And to hear you sneer at me was like...
Finding a maggot squirming,
A discovered liar,
At the core of my wet amber fruit;
Or the time I discovered that at Versailles,
In the fondant rooms,
Beside the taut marble and unnecessary gold,
Aristocrats would squat on the staircases
And piss.
It was like finding out that your lover
Is taking Imodium.
Don’t you know that since the day you laughed at me,
I haven’t been able to so much as look
At a nectarine, fig biscuits or anything French?
And bread?
Tasting that is like kissing you.
I heave.
From Magma No. 9 (Spring 1997)
I hear shots.
It’s the wind, I say.
Then, loud murmurs.
Surely the fountain below my room.
The moon is a bruised fist tonight.
It has obliterated the stars.
I sleepwalk across the tiny island
to you, mi Hombre Sin Miedo,
my stony love.
It’s dark and the padre in the chapel
with his missing arm and chipped toes
is soaked in yellow holy halo.
But you mi amor, my lichen-crusted
beloved, stand against this moon-lit wall,
eyes sewn to the sea. Such sadness
in the curve of your spine, the tilt of your neck.
Does the smell of death still reek
through the crevices of this blood-stained wall?
Do the cries of men in Franco’s blizzard of lead
still echo in the chiseled chambers of these ears?
Here are my eyelashes.
Take them in your lips.
Here is my forehead.
Let it rest on your chin.
Here is my tongue.
Something behind the wall shudders and
shakes
the ancient oak. Leaves flutter and rain.
We kiss like ghosts.
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