les pauvres cœurs


Thursday, January 3, 2013

123012-123112, "For Elliott, Part Deux ohne Trunkenheit"

Creatures like us
think too much about what it means
to be one of us.

We don't know
and our identification must always be for somewhere better
someone - ourselves of a different caliber.

I wish we could trade bodies for a day,
I would give you my breasts in an instant,
an easy femininity and heels that rarely hurt -
natural sway and carriage to be noticed.

The stares only feel terrible when you remind yourself
of what they could mean in strange crowded bars
or Post Alley after two.

In you,
I would hold tiny espresso cups,
drumming fingertips at young ladies reading Proust,
ask them what they know Anais and Henry.

I would buy a leather jack
and climb long limbed over abandoned warehouses
putting bricks in zipper pockets
I would call the fog on the pier back home
find a pretty girl
and kiss her as best my newer mouth
knew how.

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