Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

Love Poem

 You

are the music of two grasshoppers

making love in a  outside my schoolyard,

where four-year-olds ask me,

what are the grasshoppers doing?

and I tell them they’re dancing to the music of

You

are the gaps in my ribcage

where the sunrise winds through to my heart and

You

are the part of the sunset that is so pink

the grasshoppers think maybe we should just stop and watch

You

are the moon when it bloomed for the very first time

and a child, inspired unwound the lid of a jar

that set ten-thousand grasshoppers free and

You

drive me fucking crazy.

 

I mean insanely.

You make me wanna take a fork to my eyeballs,

rip the hair from my armpits

and shove it down my throat

'cause I would rather choke

than argue another minute with you

but you are so

pretty.

 

And smart.

You know so many words.

You're every poem I would write

if ink could ever hold the light

that glows from your toes

when you're climbing up trees.

Girl, I swear you got sap running thick in your veins

and I never love you more

than when you're mourning the death of raindrops

falling forsaken on pavement

God I love how you hate pavement

 

But you make me wanna smash my skull on pavement.

It’s true.

When we argue you make me wanna rip off my nose,

bone and all like my uncle Billy used to pretend to do.

He’d say “Girl, I’m gonna rip off yer nose!”

Then he’d tug at my face

and hold up half his thumb

and half the time he’d fool me and I’d start crying.

But I’m older now and I’m not lying

you make me wanna rip off my nose.

 

Except when you don’t.

Sometimes you make me wish I had an extra nose

only to smell your hair,

because I love how your hair smells like... hair.

I always hated the smell of shampoo.

Besides

I love you

It’s true.

 

The way you pretend to chew gum when you’re nervous.

The way you stick out your tongue

when you look in the mirror

‘cause you think your face is shaped better that way.

And I love the way you pray.

And I love the way you chew

and use chopsticks like you’re from Japan.

 

God, you’re a woman of culture.

I wanna eat you like a...not a vulture

 

a swan.

 

I wanna eat you like swans eat flowers.

Baby, if swans ever ate flowers

I would eat you like that for hours.

 

Except when you’re sour

and acting like a self-righteous grumpy old grump

like ya do sometimes

‘cause those times

you make me wanna run to the edge of the fucking world

and hurl myself into a black fucking hole

and never come back ever.

 

And then there are the times I wanna

be with you forever and follow you forever

wherever you go

if only for that freckle in the middle of your belly

that’s just like mine,

or the time you corrected me for saying man

instead of human kind.

I can’t believe I did that.

 

Do you know how much I love your boobs?

Almost as much as I love how

you hate that I call breasts boobs

and say you’re tired of dating a twelve-year-old boy,

but God, your boobs bring me joy.

Though I could live forever between the lines of your teeth

and eat nothing but memory and purge myself clean.

 

You are a dream.

We are a nightmare sometimes,

but if you wake up terrified

I’ll be there to hold you,

fold you in the pockets of my faith

and say, “We’ll be okay.