the mummified lovers
of Pompeii were found to be two men

I cannot work-a-bone  until I’ve showered
this ghost-froth   from my membrane.

We walked back to our camp, stumbling on liquor
and deep sand, pushing and holding one another.

Call me wife most pale, since
you and your god will not

Sometimes, to continue the metaphor, you could not remember being beaten up.

The ambition of the sea crests higher
than our will, but we still seek the water.

Show me your favorite teeth, the ones that pave your smile. I’ll wear them around my neck

She cried over her bowl of Carbonara:
no one had ever cooked like that for her.

When the man I love asked me how I found
him I didn’t tell him the truth.

His silence, a reply strict as Leviticus, held us in its undertow until we were men with secrets of our own.

Wait for the ash blanket and the concrete
wall of stone when the lights go out

that morning Mother was afraid
afraid of God and i held her hand

It remembers when I wore a mask
with gnarled head and long beak

Just because. Threw them to the pigs.
He just wanted to tongue with sin.

The once-wife married the fields.
Let a draught be ready.