#3

Dearest, Variations on a Theme by L. Cohen
j. vogel

Your toothbrush is still there where you left it
the last time you were here –
so I don’t have to remember, you said.
That was when my corner of Queens
still has some leaves. And the kitchen still
looks the same – only colder now.
And I’m writing this letter because I know
it’s worse for you now and I’m wondering
if we’ll live to see spring. I suppose we won’t.

The night you left looked like Christmas
with your green hands and red eyes.
Your hair was so dark that night.
I saw how heavy your braid was, tugging
at your scalp. And I can’t even imagine you
light like a star, when we used to drive
with all the windows down.

I hear that some old friends of yours are talking.
I hear they’re laughing that you’re
with a woman. They aren’t laughing
at me. Have you told her you love her yet? Do you
love her yet? I never know what to say
when you call – the silence lasts hours and I hate
for you to hear me cry.
Have you told her you love her yet? I don’t think
I forgive you yet.

March11poem: Song

variations on a previous theme

Bring me
more to fill the channel between
my thighs that extends empty from here
to my breastbone, through the spasmodic pit
of my stomach – the drying sinew of
my hollow ribcage is thirsting
for something I look for
in books - I fill it
with ravenous intake of blades, and flesh
ripped salt-flecked and raw
from white bones of bathers, the pink meat of
prostitutes, butchers, madmen, and sleepers.
I am sucking on daemon birds baked four and
twenty into shapes shy, drooping,
unseen, and still I’m
dissatisfied. No more, bring me
touch – my belly is distended
painfully. Bring me
the all-American sod that diffused my bard-
I shall bury myself in it, naked, mad to be
In contact with it and
weeping for the want of exhalation.