big bed
Close the little papa’s eyes,
close’m eyes, close’m eyes.
Sleepy baby with the goldfish lips,
deep dark lashes, angel-pink cheeks,
ears like truffles, or hatchcovers
for underground shelters.
Darling baby with the snotty snout,
swept-back ‘in flight’ hair,
the tightly closed lashes
of a president embalmed
in a coffin of dreams, under the eye
of the gaudy activity bear,
Ellis’s Arepa Omeka—
a tattooed, rope-wristed
hand and a fish—
the poster of Barney and friends.
The curtains shuffle in an easterly.
Tamarisk feathers fade yellow, fade green
in a sea of moist air and chimney pots.
Not a palace, but cheerful,
this little house and warm.
We have an angel in the bed with us:
chafed fluey nostrils and wide
globed brow, his right arm flung
between her face and mine,
the left left out on the covers.
Spider-red capillaries on shut lids,
Chanel lips succulent as anemones,
nipple-blistered still at twenty months.
Her ring-finger hand covers one breast.
He sucks the other and fiddles
with my penis with his foot.