I must hunt her down in her home.
Not sportingly - its facade almost garish
a wreckage gleaming between two old
brownstones given over to the desert soil
by older hands than mine - she is not
a difficult catch. That's
just where she hangs out after all, all her
deadlong days, all long legs that go
All the way up
and I would never touch her bareskinned, me
fearful ape me
She shines like the key for E Flat —
the dug-out hormonal colloquialism
heralded by that letter — she shines
Like a drop of blood in a sea of ink she
is irrepressible She shines —
She was born a danger. I became
one
when I cut her down and she brightsunwarded
her gorgeous belly shimmerglistening
and she tucked up her limbs to beg "Please
don't hurt me. I do not want this." And
iwithmybladepole-ended strike —
Do not stop until I see guts. That's how I know it's done.
That's how I can be sure she won't hurt.
Until then she might live to crawl away and
haunt another place
underneath
tomorrow