Menses and other poems

I listen to crickets saw night

like a lock on a box of secrets

on my right, books spread out in bed

their corners curling 

I want to call you 

discover where your toes point now

a blue notebook touts five subjects

in place of your head tossing on the pillow

I asked what you were thinking once

feeling your heart slow to a circling hawk

you’ll never get inside my head you said

there’s some poetry, self-help

feathered light and solid colors

  

a dictionary from 1971

reminds me of pedantic 

the meaning I learned 

back at your bedsit a few hours after we met

a squiggle of tobacco on your bottom lip

hard cider on my breath

Old Friend from Far Away is open

prompting me to write about nuts

oil from my hands leaves permanent shadows on pages

not like your body with my cuts on bone

wherever you are

your half of night is sawn by jagged breathing

if you sleep on your good ear we’ll hear 

nothing when the lock breaks. 

The lingerie sale is a karmic wink.

What goes around comes around 

the rack of sheer, bright skins

with ribbons and bows like atrophied limbs 

catching my fingers in its web of 

coarse sex. 

He wants a surprise—

one size fits all

dyed the color of cartoon cherry blood

slit up the belly

and sewn by 

a woman with needs.

I toss her on my bed

her long black braid licks 

her curved back

her skin shines with sweat.

I whisper in the hollow of her ear

“My body used to be enough.

Once we made love three times on the way to the toilet.”

“Ahhh,” she says, splitting the symmetry of her mouth.

“Four if you count on the toilet,” I add.

Then the clicking starts

from her dislocated thumb shifting 

in out in out in out in out in 

as she strips me

scratches and bites my breasts

to make them ache and swell

spits on my chest 

to glisten depth

picks blood and rust from under her nails

rubs them into my cheeks and belly 

to look flushed

wipes her oily brow inside my thighs 

for a sticky glow

snaps her thick braid with teeth like lightning

wraps it high round my hips.

The remaining inches hang like a tail

she packs in the crack of my ass

and up between my legs

covering my pubic hairs

with a fan of split ends. 

The clicking stops

I pull the blanket up to my chin

pretend to sleep. 

Both of us worn out from his surprise.