To Mark—a Scorpio(n)
                                        known for eating his own tail—an
                    ouroboros whose kiss
                                        epitomizes sex and death—

Oct. 23^rd

                    We never got closer than two
                                        people get close in bed

Oct. 24^th

                    a long-suffering friend as far
                                        as to the altars, ‘don’t

Oct. 25^th

                    be seduced, be inspired—’ you’d said
                                        martyrs who live well fill

Oct. 26^th

                    their boots with its prize before sun-
                                        rise runs down stiletto

Oct. 27^th

                    hills, landslides innocence into
                                        kisses/bends promises

Oct. 28^th

                    into promiscuity, and
                                        beads of light sweat into

Oct. 29^th

                    wider breadths dawn’s hands whose fingers
                                        tiptoe over heads and

Oct. 30^th

                    torment those men who wear them like
                                        crowns, accomplishments of

Oct. 31^st

                    empty ornamental helmets
                                        daybreak fists from them as

Nov. 1^st

                    clowns do laughs, prowling throats for signs
                                        and sounds, evidence that

Nov. 2^nd

                    someone is listening, or had
                                        been, since one glance’s theft

Nov. 3^rd

                    of another’s breath silences
                                        with a cough what makes life’s

Nov. 4^th

                    rising and falling, its rhythm
                                        of (c)rippling tides and waves

Nov. 5^th

                    of wishes denied fulfillment
                                        worth riding, against chests

Nov. 6^th

                    pressing our ears, treasuring more
                                        than the luxury of

Nov. 7^th

                    going a year without winter
                                        the wealth of knowing for

Nov. 8^th

                    sure, beneath white-outs of shoulders
                                        dropped below drifts of flesh

Nov. 9^th

                    no one else’s lips can catch, no
                                        doubts questions can test or

Nov. 10^th

                    second-guess, two hearts resist for
                                        one moment the whole world’s

Nov. 11^th

                    efforts to crush us, protesting
                                        its injustice with meat

Nov. 12^th

                    whose every beat reaches each
                                        our surfaces even

Nov. 13^th

                    as we sleep, stripping from our myths
                                        edges and shadows we

Nov. 14^th

                    cling to and keep, excuses knees
                                        and wrists wrap themselves in

Nov. 15^th

                    lest they go limp before we can
                                        resist temptation’s fruit

Nov. 16^th

                    choke on its thorns, and bleed through wounds
                                        of mouths no one wants to

Nov. 17^th

                    own up to, knowing a closed mind’s
                                        like a knife, biting dogs

Nov. 18^th

                    until they fight what no tongue can
                                        master: how to pronounce

Nov. 19^th

                    sentence against this thing we let
                                        our appetites create

Nov. 20^th

                    ‘we could both be executed’
                                        you’d warned me from the start

Nov. 21^st

                    before parting, embarking on
                                        a month-by-mouth journey.