Rummy Park, 55
(The Polar Opposite)

Because
I ache to kiss him,
I look through him
As if he were a ghost
And deep-throat his polar opposite
Beneath the humid island night
Of mango, serrated palm leaf, tiger lily.

Because
I touched his cheek in a dream,
I come on the lips of his polar opposite
Upside down and backwards
While watching the sodium  sky
For a plane from New York
Where an old lover
Compulsively fingers his new beard
Unclairvoyant that it will render me
Comfortless, incompliant,
This man whose tiger skin bed I shared
For five lightning-fast years
Of blue grass and glassy lakes
And labyrinthic caves.
He is bristling at a patient's suicide,
The second in a life's work,
Really not a bad record
If you do the math
For caring exclusively
For the most fragile ledge pacers
Of us all.
But what bothers him most,
Is not that they were the two greatest actresses
Who didn't drop him a clue,
But that he found them beautiful
So beautiful that he kissed a part of them
Silently, darkly, unprosecutably,
And the most dangerous moment, he blinked.
My disappearance was just as unapologetic
And this is why he returns
To collect the polar opposite
Of what's left of me.



Rummy Park, 56
(Say You Will)

I have no right to ask.
You'll maul me like the creature of my dream.
You'll come in my hair on my wedding day
Deflowering the baby's breath
In my tight French twist.
You'll spill wine on my eggshell white gown.
You'll crush my calla lily bouquet
Under your anaconda boots.
You'll jam both my nipples into your mouth
Just as he says, "I do."
You'll take my panties down and spank me
With your monogrammed turquoise belt.
Of course,
You'll tongue my perineum
In the reception line.
You'll eat smoked salmon
Out of your black cowboy hat
And fall ass backwards
Into my seven layer cake.
After I have apologized for your behavior,
You'll break into our honeymoon suite
And just when I
Am coming on my new husband's face
You'll force me to ass fuck him
With a purple strap-on cock
At gunpoint.
See how you always ruin everything?



Rummy Park, 57
(Collision)

A jaguar rises up
 From a clean elk carcass.
Only after eating
Does the taste of blood become
Unpleasant.
He washes his angular face in the stream
Pawing at
The gossamer pinks and blues of fish.

I think of him
When I pass
The bird sanctuary
Where the circus train wrecked.
I think of him,
His calm emerald eyes,
His speechlessness,
His disappointless affection,
His broken bone.

I think of
A thousand star-bellied ghost finches
Moving on.

I think of him,
His jerky
Whip of a walk,
Upturned face, spellbound
At the unreachable sky,
His happiness
Almost more
Than I can endure.



Rummy Park, 58
(Sundays)

He's collecting new ways to make me come,
Upside down and backwards
In the park on his face,
The window ledge,
With his thumb on the subway.
It's all just aerosol whipped cream
On the pout of his fleshy lips
When he muscles down the night sky,
My damp flesh too much cathedral
For such a confirmed agnostic.
He's collecting new ways to make me come
Which add up to chocolate ants and cherries
On the tone of voice he uses when he is inside me,
(confessions before the guillotine).



Rummy Park, 59
(State of Disrepair)

Seems unlikely what you're telling me,
Mouth such icy ghost grey,
Remember the bitten plum of your lips,
Honey scented candle glow of September,
The grapefruit, burnt pine and clove
Of your fingers on my tongue,
Just close my eyes,
Replay the sound of your voice breaking,
Meet you backwards in time,
When the crack above your bed
Was the crack above mine.



Rummy Park, 60
(After the Argument)

Three months after the argument
The steel blue collar of his sweater
Twisted up as his head careened sideways
And the lunch invitation was released
Like the snorting bull before the matador.
We ate triggerfish with cakebread wine.
Everything in the bistro was lamb white.
His lips were a bitten plum
In the dying candlelight.
My hands went amnesiac and blind
To map him for the first time.
We waved on the trolley
And walked the hexagon lawn.
We silenced the cicadas at the bruise black lake.
We stopped at the bench where he first entered me.
He said, "Do you remember halloween?"
I laughed like a ghost in his dream.