GIGOLO

Pocket watch, I tick well.

The streets are lizardy crevices

Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.

It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,

A palace of velvet

With windows of mirrors.

There one is safe,

There are no family photographs,

No rings through the nose, no cries

Bright fish hooks, the smiles of women

Gulp at my bulk

And I, in my snazzy blacks,

Mill a litter of breasts like jellyfish.

To nourish

The cellos of moans I eat eggs—

Eggs and fish, the essentials,

The aphrodisiac squid.

My mouth sags,

The mouth of Christ

When my engine reaches the end of it.

The tattle of my

Gold joints, my way of turning

Bitches to ripples of silver

Rolls out a carpet, a hush.

And there is no end, no end of it.

I shall never grow old. New oysters

Shriek in the sea and I

Glitter like Fontainebleau

Gratified,

All the fall of water an eye

Over whose pool I tenderly

Lean and see me.