(for Joyce)
What did you cry at me from the top of the stairs?
That you had fallen through the ocean of reality
Down to the floor of stars? That the eyes of
The creature you might have been became unglued
From your tongue and rolled under the door?
Put your thumb here I’ll say, taste your own saliva again;
Cross yourself like a whore.
Let me uncross the petals of your thighs and
Let the sun leach away your grace.
Each of us after the violent rain will begin to mimic
Real fear: your own mournful love lacks direction,
It keeps censoring the gentleness of physical control.
If you’d come down here I’d explain it all again,
Place you out supine with your arms swimming forward, your
White ankles flashing through Dis, careening, trying
To recover the balance of ecstasy.