Swep-Lovitt

5    Before Redressing You asked me to use Capsaicin on a crusty place On the nape of your neck. Naked on bed´s edge You pushed up, held your hair As I applied the cream. Carefully, I flaked bits off Without tearing flesh, Cleaning, until new skin. I blew flakes away. You shivered--then turned-- Of a sudden, so so shy. 6       Your Massage Easing you back, I remove Your flats, black hose. Now, pressing thumbs hard, Work heel to toes between The fine bones of each foot. I kiss, our eyes meeting, The inside of your right calf, Your left knee, yet rising. 7    When We´re Gone I wish you hadn´t deleted The 600+ messages we sha

An old girlfriend, girlfriend of my youth, Is in my area, wants to come by. We are neither kids, but she, as she says Of me, has aged well.  She is fine. E.'s brought vodka, to take the edge off. We sit on my screen porch, include Beth Hart, and her I'll Take Care Of You. As I refresh E.'s drink, add Sprite, She asks, smiling, "trying to get me drunk?" No, dear, I want you fully interactive.

And she was unhappy about it. I am either pretty, or beautiful, your choice. But you've always called me beautiful, And so, in the sanctity of us, I was always beautiful.  What's changed? Or are you fucking with me, playing, Always playing, but with an edge, sometimes Too sharp.  Read your poems To me, mine to you.  Think of us in a dark Room, me slowly unbuttoning my shirt, You're on fire, that should do it.

Lisa called from a mineral shop In Nashville--a trilobite. I gave a long-held, treasured one To R., later replaced it in Taos, Which became a gift for S. So, a trilobite awaits a quester To take it up, weigh it in her hand. An ancient token, a passage Into a world evolving, as I type.

When I picture you, I see a little Girl, black-haired, chewing her lip. Serious.  Working to create A password to open up the world-- To recognize her for the princess She is fated to be--or maybe An alternative route, perhaps men Changed to swine, a sorceress. I called you Circe, many years ago. "Dear Boy, you found yourself Amusing.  I am old as Greece itself. You fancied yourself seductive. It was I who took off your clothes. In your mirror, look, a snout?"

I asked the boys, A rough circle of twelve Fifteen-year-olds, Triangles of sweat Soaking the backs of their shirts, Two hours just done In the July Tennessee sun, I asked the boys-- And Timmy not a favorite Of either coach, or mate-- What if a gorilla Crashed out of the woods Behind left field Made a bee-line for Timmy, What do you boys think-- And they roared, "That fucking gorilla Is in trouble."

Z. wrote a poem about a man Who sat not to write poems But to message with the world. She, of course, nailed it. I did an interview for the local Paper, The Daily Leader. The reporter asked why I wrote. I said to find people like me. My poems are messages, Put into bottles, thrown out beyond The breakers, as far as I can. So I have watched, waited, For her who has fished a bottle From the sea, at my door, Come to return a poem to me.

S. liked the "sex," the sweetness of "Baby," having a "partner," but in the end these were just luxuries, ones that she had proved over a lifetime she could live without.

Working nights, sleeping days, When the boys filed off The bus from school, I'd get up. Then, bats, gloves, three Blocks to the Kennedy Park fields, A tall, gray painter's bucket With forty balls, the boys To shag for each other.  Swep Attacked each of his balls, Sent Jeremy chasing to all corners Of the lot.  I stayed on Jeremy, left-handed, pitch By pitch, to pull the ball, Discover his power. 5 p.m., the boys plopped down, While I jogged the field For balls missed in the clover.

A canvas attributed to both artist And her three-year-old, Clara. Purple and orange across The center in crayon.  "I only left The room for a few seconds, Came back, and Clara's beaming." So, Not For Sale, Clara says The swirls of color are unicorns-- Anything is possible, Come out in pairs to graze at dusk.

snatches fish from the bottom of the sea: down the hatch without a sound, son of cod, kill the clown, peanut butter and jelly fish, she swallows them tip to tail. She spouts like a whale, she hisses and steams, sputters like water on a hot wood stove, mutters and swears at the gods and men who never say quite what they mean. Rats rummage through her belly, I'm a closet, she thinks, an old bag; she slaps at their scrabble and chew. They don't scare easy; she knows they're getting closer to the edges of her soul. You never know what's next. What's next are night-stretched shadows on a crimson lawn. With bones like blubber, so tired of the

They feed you blood from a machine are kind, want to know about you. They feed you contaminated blood sometimes. Then you see heaven in the sulphur lamp & white walls. Down a plastic tube the blood drip drips. Your forearm itches. Sometimes you see hell. It is bare like the room they keep you in. You wonder if you’ll live forever. They expound the rule of the fittest, population control. They let you go.

Why should the world sit in judgement on you? Its social contract was a cage, kept men like song birds. You served liberty. As it is the nature of fire to scorch, vapours to rise, each acts according to what it is. For this they would stake your heart. Sunlight like spilt wine on your shirt, you in the pomp of your difference. You tell the wool-wigged lawyers: Compromise dilutes the blood; my life’s an experiment in living.

You are masquerading as a normal person in Finsbury Park. Nearby, deer-like, BMXers group, debate their mate’s stag do. A ginger-topped junkie jogs up seeking a spark for his joint & now they’re proposing getting wrecked this weekend. It’s like putting the needle down into the groove on a record knowing exactly which track will play. You want to sink your teeth into their jugulars, just to make them different. Glance shifting to an early hyacinth, the flowers are withered on the stem.

A thousand pages of photocopying & it is night. You are leaving the lit hive, stepping out onto the street. Time to feed. Taller, harder in the darkness, chilled classics on your iPod & armed with a killer chat-up line. A petite brunette is lolling on the library steps. Pillbox hat, gloves, 40s chic. She smiles vaguely. Do not fear me, you tell her.

As dusk falls, the rose bush still, trilling voices on the air, a girl applying rouge in the flat opposite, he departs for the mall. He can roam its corridors, pass in & out of its shops, ride its lifts, sit in its cafés or designated outdoor squares. He can do all these things yet he is not free. In the mall he is like one returned to the land of the living demanding due burial. No one sings.

A cold caller at vamping clinics, their infrared alarms are blind to you. You plunder, vanish. It’s back-up for the nights in. Drunken packs baying outside, the children of the night can wait till tomorrow. You do not know if you are happiest when alone but lingering in your flat, a glass of red in hand, you feel human or something very like it. On your fridge door a heart sticker: Blood Donors Are Good For Life.