I’m not sure if I have any hands
when I am alone, unheld. I don’t want
to say what I’ve done lately to feel
myself: the man with the chemical peel
whose face fell off in chunks
all over me the first time we fucked.
The mini-mansion I called Grey Gardens,
knowing he didn’t watch movies
with women in leading roles,
wouldn’t catch the insult. Everything
he owned thrown across whatever
stood still. A mess fit for a ruined prince.
Call him Hamlet. The syringe
by the windowsill — I couldn’t bear
to ask. He was sober, he said
he was sober. Maybe an explanation,
like insulin, maybe not.
Mostly I didn’t want a reason
to stop touching him. Wanted
my legs pinned back till
hamstrings yowled, everything
I could open opened and his.
I don’t know who I am in this city,
this South. Where do my muscles end?
Does the ground begin with aching?
I never stop walking. I am always leaving
myself in bed, in a hotel room
I never pay for or never stop
paying for. I am always a debtor,
penniless at the feet of love’s sovereign
throne. I show him my good and he takes.