My Mother’s Dildo
Pink as the icing she piped
onto Kate’s cake. We poked it
with a stick as if it were roadkill.
We loved her like an elegy
to who she was without us—
I imagine her in her room,
little radio turned up to hide
the buzzing as bees pour from
her breast: she catches herself
at the bottom of the playground
slide, her breath growing heavy
as a woman in labor just before
one of our voices rushes in.
What I Loved About My Mother-In-Law’s Nudes
was the way you held them.
Who knows how long we stared
at those six crisp Polaroids
we found placed in the paperback
on her bedside table. We were
supposed to be packing.
She was gone—she took
her life. You knew not to
sneer at her spread legs
or the leopard-print panties
at the bottom of the frame.
Maybe she liked seeing herself
like that, mouth open tasting
some delicious invisible dessert.
Why is it that pleasure is the only
happiness you don’t have to be
happy to enjoy. Finger
on the shiny film, you touch her
the way you touch the stars
when you show them to me.
Blue Candle
Nights, I hear my sins
scrabbling in the ceiling:
I made Luke apologize
for loving me too much after
grinding my mini-skirted ass
against his friend in the dark
school gym; let Kyle toss
Kate’s favorite skateboard
off a roof; the time I forgot
Mom’s birthday because Liz
was in town and we were old
enough to drink—I think
I invited Mom to dinner hoping
she’d pay. How many times
did the waiter come out of
the kitchen not carrying
a small white cake
on a syrup-drizzled plate,
hand cupped around a single
blue candle? The restaurant loud
with the absence of applause.
For an hour the next day
I listened to her tell me it was ok
while I clomped
around in her forgiveness
the way I did as a kid
in her famous red heels.
So consumed by grace
I hardly noticed how badly they fit.
After You Go Soft Inside Me
You apologize, like a boy
on a dock who has just let
his catch slip back beneath
the surface of a lake.
I don’t mind. Bring me
your smallness, your
tender disappointment.
Pajamas around my ankles,
I smile, wipe my slick thigh
with your shirt. When I lie
about reading or doing dishes
when I’m doing nothing,
you catch me the way a dancer
catches another dancer from
not-falling. We leave
the curtains drawn, windows
open; I hope someone sees
the tender constellation of
pimples on my bare ass,
the way you shrunk like good
fresh vegetables in my oven.
I never knew how small
we had to reveal ourselves
to be, to be this loved.
Fake Orgasm
My love, when you bend me over
your workbench with the view of
a few fallen screws and a dusty shovel,
this is my gift to you. I know all
the reasons not to, but it's fun
to perform these taxidermied sighs
with perfectly posed wingspans.
I want to make your back bleed
with how much I love you
and won't be denied this
false idol. After you clean
my hairbrush or, mid-
smoothie-making, bring
the peanut-buttered spoon
upstairs for me to lick, I want
to give you something back—
so I open my mouth and
like knotted scarves pull out
lies. But if I’m being honest,
sometimes it's the pleasure of
having a secret. All my life
I’ve felt my life has this
false back, and it doesn't
matter what’s there, just
that you can’t reach it.
Self-Portrait with Unplucked Nipple Hair
It’s not a statement, just laziness
that lets these small strands
sheet-music my skin—what if
I skip the trip to the bathroom,
chin pressed into chest as I pick
away at my breast with a tweezer.
Once I was hungry for pink donuts
and sweet potato fries and sugar
cereal, and now I’m hungry for
pink donuts and sweet potato fries
and sugar cereal and everything else.
What if only surrender can redeem
insatiability? I can’t keep living
on the knife edge between stuffed
and full. I want to collective-noun
my desire, part my life like a labia
and jaywalk across prayer. Instead
of give me roses, spill red wine
across my carpet; instead of
hold the car door open, drive me
off a cliff. All this because for once
I do nothing? Who knows. Maybe
next time I’ll flash the camera—
like a flock of geese I’ll take off my shirt.
The Intimacy Coordinator
Earlier, she ordered knee pads
for the blow job scene, handed
out Wet Ones so the stars could
wipe away the sticky residue
of skin tape. She teaches
the actor how to pleasure the air
in front of the actress, swirling it
like a troubadour’s song. Irresistible
to pop grapes at the grocery store
into your mouth, touch the crosswalk
button way more than once. We can’t
withdraw consent from the world’s
unbearable thrust—it’s an art the way
she slides yes like a bright white letter
under our door. Instead of kiss she says,
Close the distance between your mouths.
She’s undressing language. There’s no
safe word—not even good, not even
God. Safety, comfort, ease are flat
as a ship before it’s slipped into a bottle.
Before Language, Singing
As far as we know Neanderthals had no language.
Some scientists believe they sang to each other
in wordless notes that could’ve meant anything.
Like, before the body, the silk slip; or before
thirst, a blue clay cup with the artist’s initials
carved on the bottom. They made sounds
crude as a first kiss, crooned warm as animal
hide just flayed. We never really know
what it is we’re saying to each other, even
with the fine stitching of sentences and
syntax’s elaborate technology. Every truth
I’ve ever loved has been profligate
imprecision. Tonight let’s peel certainty
like a fruit with a rind too bitter to eat.
I’ll use a low tremolo to say I like the place
your stubble starts to change direction
on your cheek; a simple hum to say
and not say, Right there, like that.
First Published in Harpur Palate.