8. Lips, Teeth

After clubbing the night away, you brought breakfast, sausage and egg on whole-wheat bagel.
We stayed in bed the whole day, kissing, dozing, talking, touching
on men far away from my room, yet here in bed with us.
It was your second time in my bed. It was a Sunday.

A friend, let’s call him X, once said,
choosing love is not like choosing a college.
What he means is love’s offers don’t all arrive at the same time.
We don’t choose between possibilities, but between love and loneliness.

It is not immediately obvious which is better.
Love is young and passionate, like a college freshman,
then he graduates to duty and settles down to will.
Loneliness—we are all students of loneliness.

And in the book of loneliness, which is also the book of the body,
I have seen the lineaments of Beauty through a glass of cheap house wine,
I have seen dark-beat music pound against the cliff of his body,
and prove his permanence,

I have gone back night after night to find what I have lost,
and walked the garish city pierced by ear-studs of streetlights
and cock-rings of flashy shop-windows, and walked the city
tattooed on its chest, arms, butt, and thighs by sidewalk trash bags,

which is why I won’t choose between love and loneliness,
but choose Beauty, which is a form of love and loneliness.
In my bed you found a strand of blond pubic hair.
That Sunday I found Beauty baring lips and teeth.


Plan for this poem-in-progress

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