I
You were my hollow sweet sixteen.
Red lacquered, nickel-wound erogeny,
String suspenders holding up the pants
Of talentless pretense.
 
II
When I dance alone I do it
With one arm up and fingers curled
As if entertaining an absent partner.
The way you fit so intimately
Etched into muscle memory.
 
III
When you dance you don’t.
You stare at me with the cockeyed glance
Of f-holes and pearlescent inlays,
As if to say, “Are you really all I have
To look forward to?”
 
IV
Androgyny goes a long, strange way.
You are caught between the
Ridiculous phallucy of your neck
And the curve of a nubile waist.
 
V
A humpback whale, with baleen teeth,
Filtering notes into dischord and pink krill.
A skirt I can hide behind,
A necklace I can wear.

Were the world dry of pretty locations
My aesthetic priorities would be
An easy jog through some rich editorial,
All peaches and Norwegian chiffon.

Currently framing their continuous movement
Through wedding cake and statuesque
Aperitif glasses as neat and striking as a tan line.
The seamless indoor/outdoor experience is
A vertical green nonchalance of headpieces.

I will be a breeder but substantially classy,
A credit to my colleagues and their visual welfare.
Born upwards through acid-toned photography,
Mine is an image carried straight to sunshine.

Straight to maximum heights and retirements
Where the pearly gates use organza
As the expressive material.
A concept frozen in time,
In a park in Frosinone, Italy.

The women frolicking in vintage plaid capes,
Will be yours washed down with straight vodka.
To withstand the daily sartorial abuse,
The brash sexy tone, legs inexplicably posed.

That hairy chin was of a time and a place
A locus of N*Sync and Charleston
Chews so phlegmatic, we called it
A Patchwork Orange.
My trendy beard was so offensive.
So monstrous, so what? It was so-so.
Had you seen it you might have taunted,
“We’ve broken our backs on
Mount Vesuvianne Westwood.
Mi idolo is spewing Ash Ketchum!”
How else could I explain?
I ran out of time to exhume
The body politik, tock, talking
Of sheer nylon bodystockings.

This is the playground of apologetics.
Some would like to walk by on odd Sundays.
Here the woodchips are all so soggy with crime,
But they are barefoot, playing in a pile of shoes.
See the sensitive lumberjack on his tireswing,
Up he jangles on chainlink ropes
To the treetops, intent to peak at their altitude.
At the far end the see-saw is lonely, uncontentious
At equilibrium, like a wooden gangplank:
Bowed at horizon, so impossibly steady.
Nothing says “I’m sorry” like this.

I like to walk by this place on odd Sundays.
“I am too old to play these games,” I think.
“I am too stubborn,” I justify
Because it takes immaturity to repent.
The apologetics swing a large open arc,
Fingers laced, they call “Red Rover!”
The uncapped salaryman takes stride.
He is clotheslined on the arms that would not break.
Not quite so contrite, I find myself aging this time
As I sit out and observe them at play.

God, I am sorry
that everything is soiled.
I am as worthless
As hotel towels on the
floor waiting to be picked up.

The Madonna wasn’t just a material girl,
simulating innocence in proper tulle
and hoary makeup, her hands grasping
some weirdly penitent and pockmarked teenager
with an outmoded phrase on his shirt like,
“Frankie says relax” or “L’etat c’est moi”.
She was also this thin wax figurine in Haiti
that cried periodically – but was probably a hoax.
But that voodoo shit was real, so real,
That every movie is a documentary.

Material things are terrible to part with
unlike things as common as
Atman aching in a massive hole in the ground
that you slipped in and found yourself
wading in red Virginia clay.
Still, it didn’t feel as good or as familiar
as it did on the days you did construction near my house
when your Timberlands were talking to me
from where they perched on the aluminum ladder
in a time when death seemed sort of far off
even with disaster knitting heather grey socks
not so far away.