my rough hands upon her

 
 
in her black forest, I track her; I have seen
her naked body, & it is art.
 
I’m a laborer. I have dug into the earth to find food  
for my body & my spirit. my expeditions have left  
me with coarse hands & primitive desires.
 
I’ve warned her of my intentions, of how my hands
would abrade her halcyon skin if I embrace her.
she answers with her tongue of fire & spite:
‘hold me, you bastard. just hold me!’
 
in her forest, she makes poems. they stand naked &
unashamed in the light of the revelrous moon.
she challenges the snake & the lion, and the
great horned owl is her messenger.
 
she rules her arcane domain like a vampiric goddess,
thrilling to the hunt & demise of tempted eyes.
but under the elegeia chains of the cocked&loaded Poet,
she willingly becomes the sensual slave-girl. I feast on
the delicacy of her nude form, licking at her butterfly tattoo.
and cherry pie for dessert…
 
I’ve seen her tied to a knotty pine tree with hemp, her  
back & buttocks beaten with a stripped branch, so that
she might bear witness to the horizon of her endurance.
 
we fuck like devolutional savages; in the glow of stolen
bliss, I hold her with my mind & the lachrymose songs
that she plunders from me.
 
it is in this dream that I find my truest glory.  
and when it ends, adorn the walls of my crypt  
with heart broken poems…