is back in town, disappearing
with all your hard earned cash
but I still have the breeze,
chick-a-dee, I could still

score, (please)

and kiss you altogether now,
while you lie about
what you think about, while
you play the bongos with my pain,
smash the pumpkin seeds
into breadfruit again;

like I told you, the only way
is to twist and grind
and I will

rally round that catastrophe

(can't take a chance,
just can't) my feelings like a child
who dances her maybes away
cuz she can't get out . . .

so slow down boy, keep it easy
for me, I'm young and fun
no more, and smile

for blessed are the beasts

we know weeping in the corner
with their wooden chairs,
missing musicality, and much more,
though they might not see
the same lies that I do . . .

so, want what you want,
it's so beautiful,

this life so carefully arranged for you,
looking for the ending touch
of tenderness, trilling it flat


with a bird's be-bop

in the car, with somebody else
being the fool,

and truly my love, how foolish is
love in a car, and that anxious pose
when you become what they want --

how that dizzies the way
that I feel about you
and the car, hanging out

but landing hard on top

of my undone self, spinning down
this cratered road
-- and how can you win?

how can you ring the damn gong
when the billy club won't swing?
how can you come in?
how can you give me a thrill

beneath the calm

of my exterior shame
when the only refrain is a melody?
when your tune is a simple one,
and not sensational? see --

you can't answer? try
and I will (I swear I will)
try to love all of you --

what you have in that can of beer,
that smoked down fag,
that empty grin (your teeth so wide)

and the unwashed hair hanging off your eyes,
the one not fake, the one not real

with its harsher blue

because the mute button's off,
and what absorbs my light isn't grand enough
for what you feel and what I do with my hands below

when you do what you want
as you climb the stairs,
drifting into my face with a sour voice,
your breath zooish and cruel,
when I can't escape your

teeth and claws

yeah --
you know it's true,
me up on your wall,

legs and arms splayed out,
tied up, all the holes
well poked and pricked

when after the chase
you quote success
with the smell of your cock

but not me, dear,
not my god, dear
no matter how hard

you don't have those,
you don't even want -- this,
what you chose --

a trophy for your pillow case,
the wetspot where
you lay us down

after the bump-bump,
after our playbill
after you got what you sought

but you lost it, dear
and how you lost, dear
lonely, lovely, crazy dear

how you know it won't last


� 2004 by Tara Birch