Small Talk

you michelangelo’s crouching boy/you d’angelo’s purr/you dead currency/you dead presidents/you a stick of incense/you a stick-up artist/you haraami/you the hum of a lifetime basined in my lap/count our tallies of loss backward for me/run to the bank & translate it into a fistful of green of your choice/or something else sanctified/or european/pick the synonym of your choice.

in a traditional sense/the body holds its arithmetic/exports it outward/to the touch and exhale/the praxis felt best/against a groan of concrete/with the dumb weight of a hand against the small of a back/here, an elevator is our only spiritual ascension/can i be excused from living so slimly?

i dream you closer too/beside the honey-colored dog licking its vulva/an abstract laugh swelling inside your throat/ask me about blood clots and spun coins/the cracked skin of heels/anything but the nightly heartbreaks of/too many addresses/and all the ways/i am still auditioning/for this country’s approval.