Insonmia

Clumps of Brown Hair

When he makes love to the young girl

what does the middle-aged long-married

man say to himself and the girl?

- that lovers live and desk clerks perish?

Al Purdy, “Married Man's Song”

When it's late

And I remember her face,

Excited, flashing under

The come-and-go streetlights

Flaring past

At one hundred miles per hour

As I try to rush her home on time,

What am I supposed to say to her now?
A cold handshake and wish her the best?

Those kind words

Would come out layered

Thick in honey and venom,

A spit in the face wrapped

With a crinkled red bow,

An offered hand, septic.

That would be a disservice

To the years that slipped down

The drain, staring in the mirror

And cutting my hair

At one in the morning,

Trying to get each trace of

Months-old smell gone

With the buzz of a razor.

That ride to her house

I lied to her and said

That desk clerks die.

Clumps of brown hair

On white tile floor

And the clerks still

Have their wooden desks.

Unprotection

Driving

Faster than ever

A voice, scream tears

My ear, a hot breath,

Caught, frozen in a

Final spasm, released.

Driving
Slowly, morose, gray
Trees, dead leaves brown

Voiceless ride, tears

My hand touches, cold thigh

Soft sigh, wordless chill.

Heavy weight, I’ve killed,

Trickle, moment of pleasure.

Ships Sail Backwards

Reversing sands for Helen,

Who once tore down my city walls--

Running soldiers in reverse,

Priam grows younger as

Paris drops his arrows,
Takes to his mother’s breast--

The ravages of a beauty’s look,

Now nothing and the same

Only rebuilds stone titans
Guarding the city's heart

And the hardened shell lets her

In no longer.

Send her back to Sparta.