Which mask are you?

This is when you realize –
you should have kept his number,
should have stayed after he kissed you
so hard it split your lip

when he chewed your nipple through
your sweater and you nearly fainted
by the shock white charge of it,

when he ripped your stockings
grabbing your thighs, when you felt
his fingers move inside you
as if searching a coat pocket.

This is why the price tag still swings
from your wedding dress, why you cannot
fuck your husband with eyes open,
why you dunk your child’s head too long
while rinsing his hair.

This is why permanence terrifies,
why your spine threatens to tear out
and run, why you do not own pets
but keep cages

this is how you haunt your own house,
why your hands coil in hunger
and why the sound of screaming tires
burning away in the night
is the only song
that ever puts you to sleep.

Remember, my love, the object we saw
That beautiful morning in June:
By a bend in the path a carcass reclined
On a bed sown with pebbles and stones;

Her legs were spread out like a lecherous whore,
Sweating out poisonous fumes,
Who opened in slick invitational style
Her stinking and festering womb.

The sun on this rottenness focused its rays
To cook the cadaver till done,
And render to Nature a hundredfold gift
Of all she’d united in one.

And the sky cast an eye on this marvellous meat
As over the flowers in bloom.
The stench was so wretched that there on the grass
You nearly collapsed in a swoon.

The flies buzzed and droned on these bowels of filth
Where an army of maggots arose,
Which flowed with a liquid and thickening stream
On the animate rags of her clothes.

And it rose and it fell, and pulsed like a wave,
Rushing and bubbling with health.
One could say that this carcass, blown with vague breath,
Lived in increasing itself.

And this whole teeming world made a musical sound
Like babbling brooks and the breeze,
Or the grain that a man with a winnowing-fan
Turns with a rhythmical ease.

The shapes wore away as if only a dream
Like a sketch that is left on the page
Which the artist forgot and can only complete
On the canvas, with memory’s aid.

From back in the rocks, a pitiful bitch
Eyed us with angry distaste,
Awaiting the moment to snatch from the bones
The morsel she’d dropped in her haste.

- And you, in your turn, will be rotten as this:
Horrible, filthy, undone,
O sun of my nature and star of my eyes,
My passion, my angel in one!

Yes, such will you be, o regent of grace,
After the rites have been read,
Under the weeds, under blossoming grass
As you moulder with bones of the dead.

Ah then, o my beauty, explain to the worms
Who cherish your body so tine,
That I am the keeper for corpses of love
Of the form, and the essence divine!

I listen to him turning infamy into glory, cruelty into
charm. “I belong to an ancient race: my ancestors were
Norsemen; they used to pierce their sides and drink their
own blood. − I’ll slice gashes over my entire body and cover
it with tattoos. I want to be as hideous as a Mongol: you’ll
see, I’ll howl in the streets. I want to grow mad with rage.
Never show me jewels, for I’d grovel and writhe on the floor.
I want my wealth to be spattered with blood. Never shall I
work … ”
‘On several nights, when his demon seized me, I
wrestled with him and we rolled together on the ground! −
Often, at night, drunk, he lay in wait for me in the street or
hidden in houses, to scare me half to death. − “They really
will cut my throat one day; it’ll be disgusting.” Oh! those
days when he tried to walk about with the air of a criminal!

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I avoid speaking your name in conversation,
throwing it to the air as if it were nothing
more than an assumption of you; it is my last
mode of defence. The last item of clothing
to discard before I realise I’m naked in public.

Because they can hear it in my voice. I know.
Even in that one short syllable that means
everything and nothing; your name is as common
as you are rare. As easy as you are not.
As simple as love should be, but never is.

But when I’m alone, I tie my tongue softly
round the familiar sound, as if pronouncing
with conviction the phonetics of desire
will cause time to pause just long enough
for the earth to hear me naming my loss.