I will not let you come again, I swear —

Go, whisper to my bruised and tender door

Darken it with your feathered flatteries

Fill it like ashtrays with your silhouette for a week and more

And see if someone answers — I will not.

 

Each ink-drenched kiss you stick me with

You’ll see it only makes me brittle, Sweetness,

Never the writhing/smiling/drowning you

expect from your exquisite Rothko reds.

And when you say you picked them out to show the world my eyes, quote,

“How [you] see them”, unquote, I can only think:

So what’d you need me for?

 

I know, I think too thinkingly for you —

Too firm, too forced, too formally aware,

Like lunch left in the pan too long after the timer didn’t ding, and now

As you cut into me I turn

to stale rubber in your stale mouth.

 

That’s true at least, Sweet:

I’ve known people to chew on me for years, and still leave

Only the scars of their teeth.