tongue and groove, is in the heart...

photo by Reinfried Marass ©

all I want to do is smell where my training begins

she said listen to the wind

all I did was feel the rain

explain to her how easy it is for love

to fill the spaces I thought she might be in

no one can see me here southbound hand

hearing me smell my motivation

taste or touch the divine part of salvation

hymnal books disguised as bathroom literature

you have lovely magazines I told her

and the bathtub, so close to the toilet

says flush before you bathe

is this too much conversation

are you going to be inside me

where are you I ask, who

do you want me to be tonight

she said no one in particular

I just want you

to listen to the words

and I did, and I got dizzy

drinking a slow forty ounces

it didn’t seem like it was going to be enough

I thought I left the television on

and I was in one big infomercial merry-go-round

I was the latest ronco cock-a-matic

and very much part of her payment plan

she said are you watching me in the mirror

I said only if you weren’t expecting me too

she said, can you hear the wind yet

or do I have to open another window

to me it all sounded like a mouthful of biscuit

flowers springing up like 1970’s Olympic gymnasts

flexible like they grew from every chew stemmed

every tongue right there at the

foot of the bed, the night pan courtesans

cupped their mouths

sounding like machines

like little oceans waiting

she said that was my new poem

what do you think, well, I said

if Jesus could walk on water

I think your underwear should be invisible

or at least thrown my way in the morning

so I might carry your scent for awhile

hold us close together like a secret Polaroid

so whenever a lull in conversation happens

I can just say out loud, I am in a personal prayer

whatever happened to pubic hair

I mean when did it become

so out of fashion

why isn’t there more hair where

the bare parts tell us things

we already know

like how soiled cotton panels

drive me crazy

but isn't this conversation

going on in your head, she said

it might be, I said, but I'd rather

rent this space to fantasy

and lie here until midnight pools

in another open window

you see crazy is listening to the wind

like it was a poem too

just like you  

imagining me

imagining you, crazy

is what I do

pretending words are

your body and breath

pretending

I didn’t know, sometimes

this is where it happens

this is where, I fit in best

EJR ©