the infinite labors

swallowtail on lantana drips petal
and destruction. no worries. they grow
again, season in, season out. proboscus
tongue , vector of immortality.











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i brought out the memories, stored
in manilla envelopes, with metal bifold tabs
to keep them closed, since i didn't want
the permanent seal of glue quite yet.
so as to be accessible, to be inhabited in future.

the first one i saw was you holding our son
on halloween, his first year. he's wearing
our daughter's discarded dance costume headpiece
a lion's mane. your proud
face beams at him, his chubby hand
reaches for me, behind
the camera, recording.

how is it i forgot it all duning
the intervening years? what was it
drove you from me and me from you?

some times i want to apologise for beginning
with you, since i didn't know what i wanted.
it wasn't your fault that we couldn't talk.
it was your moms. your dads. the almost crippling
the almost dead. i'm sorry i can't love you
anymore but i have borne enough
of the trauma they created.




no wonder these things are placed away
at the top of my closet, in beaded forties bag.
no surprise you took these photos from the baby
book i ignorantly left behind when i moved my
grandmother's things from our house, tore
my face from some, yours from others
sent them to me thru our daughter
so i could witness how i'd broken the family.
even then i couldn't blame you for it. i'm grateful
the man i left with was nietzsche.











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that's all i can say about it.
in the few photos where i am
not behind the camera, i see a bloated
hausfrau, doe in headlites, pleading
for the car to swerve , unable
to move anywhere but into that bright
light.. destruction thru advancement
along a highway i hadn't meant
to follow. my guilt is venemous
eats at my gut. the light misses me
and i was left to find
my own way off the road.





















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what do they want
these women who marry
you and bear your children?

what more could they need
than a safe nest and your fidelity?


















































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we talk of writing or domination
techniques. you say it wasn't so much
the sex she missed, she complained
that i didn't bring her, like,
flowers for no reason, or something
like i didn't have time to go over
the books , she said things like that.
i was in masters program for chrissake i was
earning a living while she stayed at home
and baked cakes. she grew flowers
in her garden for chrissakes. i tell you

i am not particularly into the dom
sub sexual scene though i do
undrstand that tension
creates the interstice where pleasure pain
neurons fire most exquisite. slow slow
quick quick slow. you drink jim beam with
a splash of seven up. wince at the warmth.

you think you might want to go learn
salsa tonight. or perhaps get into the hot tub
after the rain, when it's dark and watch
saturn approach the moon. she's just past
full, looking like her water's breaking.

i'm on a different coast frying chicken
chatting with hunter about smoking.
i would like to dance, but all the clubs
are closed. it frightens me how many
times i've heard this story. makes me
wonder how the girls i grew up with
wanted the same things mom did
and barbie and ken and the malibu beach house.

how did i get here, why didn't i do something
with my life besides go unwillingly into that dark suburb?


i come up with, like, one good excuse.
i was just trying to survive.

i can't even say it was love.
shouldn't you know what that is
when you're in it?
shouldn't it carry you away on
some sea of opium?

i was just trying to survive.
i'm sorry i took your youth.
i tried to leave as much of your dream
for you as i could.

i didn't rape you financially.
that's my only solace for taking you
along on my ride, the place i didn't know
i was going, the place you saw clearly
once the baby popped out.

we were always a good financial team.
it was written in the stars. too bad
i didn't know how to read back then.
i might have saved us both some trouble.







































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outside sounds of a mower.
the plastic ting of a computer
tellling off its user. a knock at my door.
you come in with the sun in your eyes
i guess they call that smiling. are we going
to the beach today? i can't keep
the tears from my eyes. they have nothing
to do with you. they have everything
to do with you. i tell you
i'm writing. you ask do you always cry
when you write? i answer only
when i write the good stuff. you ask
do you want me to let you write
and i nod yes. so you leave.

















































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what the hell is water?


some day i will recognise it.
it feels like the inside of her eyes
after she opened them onto
something beyond immediate desire
the thing that moves her further from
where she was born, closer to where
she was begat.


i was probably going to leave you then,
that weekend i went to my sister's. i must
have followed you over, you had a job
laying floor in a sports store at night.
you came to her house after. she gave us
her bedroom. i remember i did not
really want to be there, in that bed, with you.
i'd forgotten my pills before. it should be ok
i'd done that before. forgotten. but you'd been
gone a week. that's too long.
when i told you later that i would marry you
because i was going to go thru with it
this time, i am keeping this baby, you seemed fine
with it. i thought i was giving you what you wanted

i mean why not? i'd already gone to trade school,
finally got a good job, in the daytime, with benefits
like you wanted.even tho i am,
and always have been, a night person.
i'd put away writing at last. buried and scattered
in journals we moved from one apt to the next.
we put down the drugs. we forgot to pick up
the hugs. no one told us we were clueless we just
stepped into the prentender shoes, running from
disease and want and hunger like there would
be safety in numbers. eating the fat of the land.
become cows. raise our kids for the slaughter
and all those cliches. now she's at the gate
of the chute, the electric hammer at the far end
does its duty. she does hers. i did mine.
you did yours. tone? she wonders.
what in the hell is tone?






i was going to leave you
but for what? to where?
in those days i still believed in purpose.
in those days the purpose of the gods
interested me. biology does its duty.
it was in fevered dream i tell you

she's 6 months pregnant. it's hot
and she's just walked a few blocks
home from where her carpool ride
drops her, at the interstate, just before
the entrance ramp. she lives on
the other side, about a block up.
the afternoon sun is brutal. she's
beginning to bulge and huff but she's heard
that pregnant exercise is good for the baby.

when she walks into the door she only wants
to sit in front of the air conditioner, a wall unit
that blows across three rooms, trying vainly
to cool off the day's heat. he's already home.
agitated over something. she's not listening or
it's been too long to remember but the fight
gets louder and she's all like LOOK i'm
pregnant goddammit and he says as far as i'm concerned
you trapped me. she goes cold. quiet. steely.

she speaks thru her teeth.
listen fucker. you asked me for nine years
to marry you. and i always said no
marriage is for having babies so if we do
get married it'll be because we decided
to have them. if you think you don't want
to do this, then you can go. i don't give a shit
i am having this baby whether you're
in its life or not. if you feel trapped nows
the time to leave. and don't let the door etc.


she went into her room
took off the art shoes
and put on her mom boots.
and now she dances every
where in those damn boots like
they[re some red shoes from a fariy tale
she got caught in, only she
didn't know she wanted them,even,
she just suddenly found them and put them on
so yeah. dancing.

she doesn't really hate them, the boots.
in fact she knows how much they shape
her legs into the thing of desired, fulfilled.
she only wishes she could have traded
that desire for something she might
have wanted earlier, but didn't.

how not knowing what you want
becomes the most dangerous animal
in the jungle. and the most rewarding.









if rewards are what you're craving.