Let’s

Let’s take off our clothes and fool around.

We can roll all over

like dogs off-leash at Lighthouse Beach. Let’s rummage

through each other’s body

like a Fourth of July blowout sale, pawing through the orgy

of tweed and twill, silk and sequins swirling up in flurries.

The Buddha says don’t argue until it’s necessary.

Let’s shuck oysters,

wash them down with dirty martinis,

the table littered with pearly shell. We can fill

the bathtub and pretend we’re looking out

at sunset over Tomales Bay. Your breasts

are lanterns flickering on the water.

Your hips are still California’s golden hills.

This morning I opened an e-mail from Texas

that said I’m going to hell and you don’t really love me,

but if I repent, though my sins be scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow.

Darling, it’s good to know we have options

but for now let’s get triplet Chihuahuas,

carry them around in patent-leather purses.

Drag your guitar out from under the bed

and sing “Rose of My Heart” again.

I’ll hunt in the garage for my zills and coin-covered bra

and do the three-quarter shimmy down the skinny hall.

Let’s not think about our children, miles away,

doing things we’d rather not know.

Haven’t we carved enough statues?

You remember the meadow I rented for you.

You wanted it sunny and edged with trees.

I paid the old woman a hundred dollars

so I could lay you down under the sky’s blue marquee.

The longer we’re together, the less I can tell you.

But hasn’t it been a long day?

The President of Infinite Sadness is sorry

she ever ran for office. She imagined

she’d be like those brawny angels

who lower you into the tubs of warm mud at Calistoga.

But monkeys are gorging on peanut butter

so science can prove fat makes you fat,

and the workers who grow roses in Ecuador

are poisoned so we can say it with flowers.

Tomorrow we’ll write letters. We’ll try harder.

We’ll turn down the thermostat and bicycle to work

and you’ll swish plastic bags in a sink of soapy water

where they float like the jellyfish they’re mistaken for.

But tonight let’s bring Bessie back for an encore.

Don’t you want a little sugar

in your beautiful bowl?

Let’s make some rain, let’s invent skin,

give me your glorious, gorgeous, generous thighs.

The ghost of my mother’s in the basement doing laundry,

offering the damp clothes that extra little shake.

Wouldn’t she be happy

to hear us nickering and neighing?

Wouldn’t she be happy to know

death is feeding elsewhere tonight?

I’ll dust your eyelids with cinnamon

and braid those old feathers into your hair.

Morning will find us asleep on the roof,

our faces blank as the new day, just the mockingbird

in the neighbor’s tattered palm

whistling a tune that sounds a little like a Persian raga,

that twangy sitar, raising the sun.