This I Know About Red

Of course whatever cylindrical device used to lift me—absent.
I do full well fine and good on my terrible lonesome or so

committed to some other thought: I could end my life
with a throat wire. Then out spills red gummy yarn.

These are my contents and my elaborate plan for the next
decade longing. Fools’ hide and hunger—twenty jumping

fauns ignite in a field. Match lit by a shadow’s curiosity.
Though I was not there for it, I still tasted their meat

and their marrow held a sweetness. I want to reinvent myself
as faun, blood, fire, and fevered gnaw. That when I devour

the act is starvation moved and it is my own thigh I hold
in my predator mouth. The muscle is an elastic warning.

If I die, there will be spiral instruments and my bowels
on surgical bed. If I live, I live and every animal speaks in red.

Love Two Times

There are lovers and then there are thorns and thorny lovers

Who put their fists through walls Who goblin out when dinner is left cold

Lovers tall as moon beams Some with ribs full of spite My lover

Who wears houses on her head My lover who kisses ringworms

My chinny-chin-chin itches with her rancor and ways of barter

Good instead and Not good enough Pennies in my mouth

Yes Yes in my bed until the fright runs out No I will not

Ghost I will not leave when morning comes I have known lovers

Who waste my poor bloat with tinny sounds They come and go

What I want is the green ponder of The door left open but love stays

Love makes red patterns in my scalp Love remembers blood like flower