My one beauty
my one pure thing,
I can’t heal you.
I can’t.

The fever’s in your girlish mind.

My hands fail me—
are clawed up by morning.
There is nothing I can hold
through the night.

I have been there before.

Let me focus on my wine,
plying lust.

Play along with me.
Let me hurt you a little more.

Crawl down here with me,
willing.
I’ve given up the face of God.
Yours will do.
Let me scour the trusting flesh
from your cheeks
with stony grave dirt
and self-prophecy.

Rub your nose in it—
cologne
and your blossoming body
of sorrows
still heady in my clothes.

Your scent is changed now.
Woman,
let me thrust into your hands

wet loam and loathing
rotting limp leaves and spoil.

Make glory of them for me
I beg you—
it is all I have left as a man.

You have been a guiding light
and I will never
let you
leave me.

-M.