i.

Water drips upwards, dead while still, alive
with fright it will fragment rocks, puddles of talk, thick
drops of awful crawling up the hollow
of a pile of neck, misplaced love caressing its
silk’s way across the back, licking a track

                        ii.

magnetic and exempted from millions of years
of metamorphosis, devolution
inevitable, mistaking any pretence
of innocence as a test taxing its
victims wanting this so badly made us, licking

                        iii.

this slippery kiss of his my prophet’s
lips whisper as if getting it were a secret,
this being eaten a privilege, come
electroplating like an engraving the soft
copper of my skin, tickling it often

                        iv.

on the day of Venus in the hour of Saturn,
his beard’s burn my punishment, asking for
it the way I squinted at him when we met, winced
at the sun’s heat, in he went, hotter than
hell, all tongue until the tonsils, nose-diving pig

                        v.

hunting the fragrant, filling up on sin
he sent shivering trifles through me until my
pulse stilled, quivering to a blunt halt but
not missing the point, guttural moans spilled like slow
poison from a mouth ajar to stall what

                        vi.

flood kills the moment for us all before veins swelled,
jumpstarting again to power its thrill,
pulling toward my heart those parts of him I knew
before his name, if ever what he gave
was even real, never since have I called any

                        vii.

man a prince, but there was something royal
about how he made me feel, treating my body
like a jewel I knew he wanted to
steal, whose shine, no matter how fine, his glistening
lather could not dim, a gem that hammer

                        viii.

could not mine, no matter how many times it went
in, jacking instead a mess that undid
him, making him want this out of bed since I give
head even more incredible than what
I get, indebted to these experiences

                        ix.

with men forbidden in those places where
what goes down when the sun sets gets us into so
much trouble that its details are better
left unsaid, secrets leaking like a faucet to
fill in the gaps such as he has my ass,

                        x.

spreading like samizdat the contraband fact that
mine is best, that nights with me mean no rest,
knowing this now, he lets me get away with it,
grinning, agreeing without speaking when
I insist we keep going without slowing down.