she hates the nature
of men that come and want more
than she can offer

i cannot love this paper. i cannot touch it soft
and love it true. trace my fingers on each indentation
of letter that fills the canvas. no. here, it is cold and 
discriminatory. i cannot taste the blackness of the ink,
feel the wetness on my hands; staining all a tinge of
dark, jet, black. 

you’re disgusting. looking, feeling, touching
wandering fingers that yearn for sexual 
awakening in a bud that refuses to bloom.
and like sunlight you come, brooding, asking,
coaxing, purring, “open up baby, i’ll show you
a great fucking time. a great fucking
time and time again.”

Hand holding

it’s a simple act, innocuous.  harmless to those
who give it little thought. it’s not that easy for me.
the sense of touch that wavers,
heat escaping through the palm, clings tightly to the fingers
presented as sacrifice.

 you do not lie to me here, for here, you cannot speak.
 i see the lines upon your fingers, tiny scars from lack
of grace. dirt that lives under your nails because you
love to play in grass. calluses from many notes that come
dancing from your guitar, greeting explorers.
they probe and poke a bit too much, noting the bump
 on your ring digit (still naked, though not for long)
 from years of writing far much, to me
and everyone who doesn’t write back.

i’d like to know, at times, if in these silent moments
you notice too, the way my skin dries most
 in wintertime, hardening cold to those that graze
me. I ask you if you hate my Sahara skin.
you answer with cream and kisses, and assure me that you don’t.
you never give me looks when I waste too much water
or too much soap, digging under my nails,
dusting clean the impurities that plague me.

you always ask politely if you can hold my hand,
and hide yours that you never seem to scrub clean well enough.
i take it, and i wonder that if in these simple gestures
you ever realize just how far i’ve come.

thoreausneckbeard:

Even as I sleep in a ravine
on a mattress of dead grass, 

bright jawbreaker,
I do salute you.

Don’t look askance as my
stomach rumbles, ravishing

omelet, buttermilk layer
cake, bubbling four-cheese

pizza. O washed-out mandala,
radiant, featureless, cratery 

face afloat in a bowl
of 4,000-year-old noodles:

don’t let me be dimmed
by injury. Drape me in your

knowing corona. Let me sip
the skeleton tea you’re steeping.

Keep our intimate religion top secret. 
Even if it’s only reflected light,

let me shine a while longer. 

these-summer-nights-in-december:

Petition | Amy Gerstler


That slightly curdled
ration of morning milk,
handed to you in a dented
tin cup: that was me.
You hardly knew who
you were swallowing,
though it seems I’ve
always been with you.
In yet another life,
I found myself sprouting
fuzzy leaves, a tufted shrub
inclined toward a beam
of artificial light
in your hothouse.
Next century, I materialized
as the well-timed squirt
of lime juice
trickled between your lips
by a fellow sailor to keep
you free from scurvy.
Generations later, I stood
on a rocky shore,
dressed as a woman,
and watched you drown—
sucked out by a particularly
vicious undertow.
(Not one of my incarnations
has been able to swim.)
You lay flat on your back
on the beach, pebbles
stuck to your palms,
profile waxy and swollen
under someone’s yellow
raincoat, salt water running
from your mouth and nose.
Another time, in a green,
succulent country,
I leaned down to kiss you
and was bucked off my horse.
You remind me of the scent
inside my mother’s cedar-lined
walk-in closet, where I
often found myself confined
for various unrepented
childhood crimes.
The cedar’s reek
was almost religious,
an orchestral smell—
like an antique cello’s
dissonant memoirs. O pursuer
fused to the pursued,
changing sex and shape
through the ages,
masquerading as a weather vane
or border guard, a jailbird
or radio wave: we, the undersigned
patiently wait to be reborn:
this time, we hope,
as that chalky substance
that coats your tongue,
or as your white nightgown.

~

from Nerve Storm (1993)

rabbit-light:

(Bubbling and spuming
as if trying to talk under
water, I address you thus:)
Must I pretend not to love
you (in your present bloom,
your present perfection — soul
encased in fleshly relevance)
so you won’t believe me
just another seabed denizen
vying for your blessed attention?
Some of us (but…

I’ve seen the way you stare into the glass,
eyes squinting into the mirror, looking hard
for some good among the bad. naked you stand
in the covered room, the drapes guarding you
from outside judgment. you grab and hold the skin,
knead it, punch it, attempting to squeeze
back into the mold you want to fill.
at times, it works with you, and lets you breathe
tiny sighs of relief as you push yourself
into those pants that are just a size too small.

I’ve seen you become the artist, using skin
as if it were a canvas. drawing lines
that make incision points for one to make
the figure that you yearn for come alive.
they curve and crawl all over, marching down
the hills and valleys of your body, conquering all.
leaving little x’s that mark the spot
for the cannula to come, and drink away
the things that you’ve learned to loathe the most.

you want me to write poems to the parts you hate
most about yourself — each tiny curve 
that curves too much, or hangs a bit too low.
– each crumpled scar that tells a story of the times
you lived too much, though now those days are far.

in those moments when you hide away,
I peer at you through the keyhole, noting each point
that’s imperfect; each wrinkle, every scar
that taints the woman I once loved.

in dark nights when my hands search for you,
you only half believe me when I say
“I love you the way you are, and wouldn’t change
your body or your form in any way.”

but on the summer nights you want me
to make love to you the most
you beg me to leave the lights on so you can see
My face as it hovers over yours.
you ask me to be forceful, and to scratch, 

                – to take, and tear, as if I’m nothing more
                than an animal that can’t contain itself.

But then it’s harder to mask my disgust.