My Baal, shimmering Apollo, junkyard Buonarroti,
funkadelic malocchio, voice shouting
from the radio, talking about love, about heartbreak,
about doing everything you can till you can't do
no more. Then you float by in a Coupe de Ville,
hair conked, wearing the mink stole
of delicious indifference, reciting the odes
of Mr. John Keats like you was his best friend.
I was minding my own business, being good as a girl
can be when every inch of skin aches
for the sky. Where is my wide sky, now all I see
is you? Where is my ocean, you hex on thought,
golden calf in the living room of ambition, pagan call,
demon whispering like beetles on the skin
of morning. I hear your voice come out of the mouths
of little girls jumping rope on Orange Avenue.
I hear your aria in the shopping center pharmacy,
in the tired lines around the eyes
of every sleepless night. You're an astronomer,
roaming the heavens, a flyboy anatomist,
dissecting the stars. Tell me again about the stars,
those cheap flashcards of the gods. Tell me
about human sacrifice, the huju rituals of versification,
the quantum mechanics of line, my holy-of-holies,
sanctum sanctorum, my hideaway in the world of cool.
Pagan huckster, heat up your spells, your charms,
your rapture, I come to you a novice, an acolyte,
a scullery maid in the choir of the unruly. Give me
my music, my words, my lyrical demonstration
of all that is gorgeous and invisible. I am
your handmaiden, your courtesan, your ten-cents-a-dance
barroom floozie. My Lord-who-whispers-his-secrets-
into-the-skulls-of-angels, your slightest whim is my delight.
Every day I wake to your disciples’ quick trill.
I am the prisoner of your darkest sigh, queen of ungovernable
birds. You visit me at night when the sky is a veil
of stars, but your shame is an aphrodisiac, a love potion,
a quick fix in the alley from the dark drug of words.