Sheep are by a goat while
cattle are like swine, prodded, yet
cattle go by hammer while
swine are by the hind leg hung
then swung about to spigot.
Quicker, infinitely cleaner, is
the hacksaw of sweet Susan’s laughter.
In the classification of cutlery, always include the clean cut of laughter. – mh
My dear, tell me again so I know
how it would have been
had you married the man
you dream of all day, tell me again
as I lie next to you now,
your nutmeat sweet in my mouth.
Tell me again so I know
how to feel for fathering five
on you fast, five in six years,
five who will never be quiet again
in our lives, five who will leave
in the night when they are of age
while up in our room I nibble
on nutmeat, proud to have traded
an oak for these acorns.
Sometimes the sweetest meat comes from the feast not chosen but eaten. – mh
Zenobia Jackson told Officer Murphy that her husband Rufus was 73 years old and a wonderful man when he was awake, but for the past year he had been jerking. Something terrible during his sleep and had kept waking her up. He’d swing his arms, she said, like those martial arts men he liked to watch so much on television. …
Snapdragons crackle
in the air for Maura
and her flowing gait,
a swagger neither Nora
nor Maureen would ever
let a suitor savor.
Maura knows
that in her wake
men with scythes
and burlap sacks,
creep like gators,
eyes afire, jaws agape.
Nora and Maureen
can smell these men.
Unlike Maura
and her flowing gait,
Nora and Maureen will smile,
take their time and wait.
Flower garden subterfuge abounds. Cinderella inflorescence fills the stunted bloom, deformed by jealous over-pruning. – mh
It’s all so simple now,
yet it took 30 years
to begin to understand.
It’s as though someone
stole the primer I had
and gave me another
in my own language.
It’s because you are
who you are
that I’ve begun
to become who I am.
That sounds too dramatic.
All you did, really, was scream
when you opened the bathroom door,
saw me wrapped in a towel,
standing at attention on a mat,
waiting in my thirtieth year
for the steam to clear
from the cabinet mirror,
waiting for someone
to shout, “At ease.”
What shouts may come as the steam clears? What image seen in that foggy mirror? Takes therapy to figure that shit out! – mh
Two evenings a week
I go to Melissa’s,
to talk and to fuck.
We talk first,
we fuck later.
Summer, fall,
winter, spring,
nothing distracts us.
We are to each other now
what we were at the start:
someone to talk to,
someone to fuck.
A perfect depiction of priapic pragmatism. – mh
Earlier than ever this morning I wait
for copy to vacuum. It must be free of error
and the deadline is near.
But what matters today isn’t news about war,
poverty or race riots ripping the city.
What matters today is the warm quicksand
of that good woman under me again,
taking me in. Let her writhe,
let her tug at her knees, let her legs go off
in every direction. Let her take what I have
and lunge for more. I’ll be here forever,
a bee crazed by the honey
buttering her thighs.
When it’s time to get down to business, there’s no better example than the instinctive industriousness of bees. Let’s get to buzzin’, folks! – mh
