Untitled 1975–86 ["What sweet death I wish"]
After Alvin Baltrop
What sweet death I wish
upon you, dear
child of the leathersong.
In between my lassoed
palms, your neck, the wry shape
of a recurved bone,
cancellous, unspooled
into a pile of thread. Your rib cage
alpines just below
your Adam’s apple, rigid
collection of cartilage
gathered beneath
the chin. My limbs
are peacocking from
your thin waist and wrist. There
is ice loosening
my grip on each of these
rails, all but the one
that could fold your vertebrae
in two. The beetles
are tonguing
at the ends of my cold
fingers, they await
something to decompose. I cannot
blame them for a process
I do not own. I do not understand
lust or grief. The properties of how
to hang a man
by his own perversion. Submissive
coyotes bred into breaking. It
has become easier to confuse
the sweat of you for blood.
The dove on the corner
joist watches your head slowly come
undone from its collar. Like
every good ending,
I lose my grip
and the bird starts to sing.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2023)