i miss the hum

I Miss the Hum of Your Skeleton
by Jude Dillon
I couldn’t get enough of me
I’m clearly background blur
the look that never rhymes
you spike my drink with second looks
to keep the pretense glowing
living for a lawn and four walls
where the rug hasn’t been watered
the tragic have nowhere to laugh
the shudder of blue hills
a spasm of ritual
I feel the teeth in the jar, the wet in my pants
I speak to you best in my sleep
voices rub the right way
I haven’t the urge
no one to design the cloud cover
or celebrate the asking price
winter comes forward like a policeman
every smile means someone else
a forest of whispers
those slivers of dark as you burn.
All we talk about is you
an empty basket in a dead garden
the miniature forest you inhabit
the manicure of bushes
you are just someone else then
bitten into gold
the flip-side switch of espresso
what burns in me
makes me love you without a –why
I move in closer to what keeps moving back
jangle away in your fingers
approach the conversation with your eyes closed
an object never to be picked up and held
you’re an iffy thing, a spongy mood
a stingy bit of generosity
a stuffy room with windows and compliments
a thin sensitive touch without touching
the darker lip, the unbuttoned kiss
and the woods rise up from nowhere.
I miss the hum of your skeleton
slip undiagnosed toward your grave
the light you walk through
the dark that presses down
a bath of slippery oil
let the rats chew electric wire
let the phone ring
stir my thin oily soup
no changes come to the surface
a new excuse to try you on again
stir a dead martini to life
bring on the olives, the darker girls
the ones with gravity
I like the word –mayonnaise
chained to the edge of your tongue
I watch a shape in your eye
the sudden aroma of the air
a mouth of bluish tints
I watch you slip away like that
a place in the pocket of the hills
your little earth armed with spies
vacuum sucked containers
the feel of cock in the mouth
my eggs crack and my bones rattle
thunder bullies lightning between your legs
the salmon come rushing up to die
the girl who borrows love
never pays me back.
Martinis choke with lust
the great drug of the visual
when the wet goes silver
I feel warmest with my eyes shut
and the sun runs down
sullen and stitched to breath
clouds hang blankets on the spikes of trees
I’m penciling in the forgery
children who shall inherit
pub stink in a pageant of air
the shambles of my view
you go to sleep with guilty pillows
stretch rubber over desire
whittle wax to bare the wick
the fuse leads to your bed
I fight for space below your headline
my clank of wit tunes your chain
softer than fog
as urgent as the rain
grey smile in an overcoat
tinged with a squeeze or a spanking
a scratchy pen on an itchy page.
The invisible comes to mind
in different clothes.
A woman young enough to be my accident
girls grow into lovely and done with
I wade in the shallow pool, in my bare thoughts
a landscape stood up to applaud
plucks harmonicas out of your hair
your bones wrap in close like a raindrop
furniture arranges around your exit
while tea drifts in a cup of sky
crooked drips of marmalade
elegant bits of mail
and in the black-flowered sun
the mirror blurs with backward looks
I’m crazy for your swerve
your bankrupt life-line
the tail of a sparrow in a kitten’s mouth
you held together with my glue.