LAVENDER GLITTER

We have dad bods

that we like best when naked

together. Sometimes I wish

I were Michael Buble. I can’t sing

and I’m not hot. I’m a rope

that gets mistaken for a snake.

I can be a noose or something used

to pull a terrier out of a well.

My husband is like the fourth

question on a geology test.

He’s definitely metamorphic.

Erosion buffs up my sedimentary soul.

At Walgreens while waiting

to pick up pills, we hear

someone say that they can

pray away the gay.

We watch a prayer escape

from his mouth and get tangled up

in fluorescent lights. It dies—

and comes down as lavender glitter.

ON A SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON AFTER RAIN

I’m listening to Petula Clark when,

unexpectedly, you walk stark

naked into the living room,

stand before me, and gently

push my face into your bush.

I’m usually more formal. With sex,

I ask “Shall we adjourn to the boudoir?”

Even now I rarely say cock.

Mom called it my thing. I do

my own thing quite a bit,

but with my face this deep,

you teach me space exploration—

I want to find every single space,

my mouth wetting you down

from thighs to navel.

I miss nothing. Pet starts singing

“Everything in the Garden”—

that’s where I am, a garden

on my tongue, bloom squirts

dripping from my face.

CATEGORIES

You’re a bear, plump and hairy.

I’m more of an otter, less hairy,

maybe a bear wannabe. As a boy

people told me how opposites attract.

We’re not opposites.

We’re a knife sitting beside a spoon

before a plate. We both shine,

get dirty and need to be washed.

I like washing you in the shower,

your hairy back and crack. The back

of your thighs, an unwrapped chocolate

kiss. You know I have a sweet tooth.

The rest of me can be sour.

After a fight you said I looked

like Richard Nixon. That made me

quite sour though I probably did.

Bear and otter, we escape

from any zoo we’re supposed

to be kept in. Cages empty,

we find a woods where cinnamon

ferns are always glad to see us.