To be heard by those by whom I’m being ignored—

                    i.

Your eyes are suns in
which twinned flames make love,
ablaze with us, all relapsing
Catholicism and shed innocence under
shadowy whispers thrown, lips dusking

          flesh besetting its blush with

sweating welts as if they
were swollen blessings, benevolent and
stinging the way the guilt
trips in as we fall
again, frantic submission to temptation,

          writhing under a choir of

collapsing steel, melting voices purging
desire hymn unbridles to sacralize
love’s desanctified martyrs until we
again feel healed, if not
whole, entire worlds devoid of

          soul tempt towers to crumble

for jewels rubble scatters and
beggars fold into weathered palms
other storms before ignored but
want transformed, deformed all the
more, skins torn from getting

                    ii.

off on offerings to plastic
gods glass and concrete made
seem less incomplete, blessed with
crackling speech, filaments flickering with
kernels of youth popping bone-breaks

          of antique age into uncommon

place, strange ritual envy of
elder seers whose visionary silences
we revere the way unsummoned
demons appear dutiful to those
whose pain their addictions mirror,

          and I want none of

this future others are after,
only to be dreamed by
my lovers into reality every
time we share in partings
neither of us dare to

          prepare for whenever we score

with scorch these bedposts, turn
to torches by which to
watch with watch-fire hot pause
this darkness whose song engulfs
our thoughts, Fridays and Tuesdays

                    iii.

gloves come off, Venus and
Mars mark with their peculiar
brands of scars fisted kisses
which pummel rubber hearts, make
stigma stop to wash off

          its delible art interest in

starting over scrubs hard, milking
our bones for oracles until,
dripping with ivory tears, scars
heal over with torrents of
wordless force by interior persuasion

          toward rebirth poured forth, portents

of tomorrows-come all but swallow
as time spent forgetting morning’s
debt every little death borrows
breath exasperating us in our
quest not to be sorrowed

          by becoming normal, conventual in

our fraternal pursuit of knowing
each other better than the
Selves we seek to evade
in these escapades, draining hearts
for spades, tongues and blades

                    iv.

trading places as we exchange
cutting remarks cutting away layers
of faces until we embrace
the same grimace we share,
beneath the performative sadness, all

          this bluster we blare, a

trust in one another we
bare, rubbing together to surface
evidence of premonitions we wear,
never mentioning how it got
there, this glistening gristle conquest’s

          campaign smeared with soothsaying spittle

our palms glide over as
together we war against having
loved much when we had
little, too into touch to
get in touch with whatever

          its meaning was then, concerned

now ever since with what
it could have been, hypothetical
friends withstanding burdensome benefits to
endure memories melting into the
distance, more mysterious than meaningless.