Vicksburg, Mississippi
September, 2014
I want to have sex with a friend
in the shallow of the Mississippi River
with her wrist loosely pinned to the back
of my neck and her breast buoying softly
in the cool filthy water, slow and tender as if
my motion could reflect the way it feels
to consider her, this is kind of about memory
trying to record more than what I taste and smell
and feel, from the outside to the inside and back
to sentimentalize unto perversion because
this is kind of about novelty, about renting out
a room where we could hide for months, where I
can record bloodwood balconies and roomsized windows
where I can hope that someday I will choose to love
something I can love easily, this is kind of about her
and upstairs apartments of 19th century storefronts
with a sun for every floor, and for every rolling hill
for unswept sidewalks, wide murals, railroad tracks
broadcasting rusty feedback, and tormented spirits
who would always welcome you back, so yes,
when I stick my thumb through her laundry it is
kind of about undulating eyes and body and mouth but
it is kind of about having somebody to run with
along sunbent cobblestones as if we were truly
escaping, this is kind of about fooling oneself
this is kind of about gratuitous memory, this is
kind of about cherishing an old town edifice delay
this is kind of about time and place, which is life itself,
this is kind of about survival, heat and heart
and hunger, this is kind of about a continuation--
this is kind of about me
"meet me in the backstreets of heaven"
-Linford Detweiler (Over the Rhine)