who steals the stars

 
I know some things about her. how men took the spice of her  
mouth, but not for kisses. they gave her the pallid chromatins
that uncoiled in their guts, & she found her nirvana as she  
sucked & swallowed. but they never gave her pearls, or emeralds,  
nor charms for her bracelet.
 
like a revenant poet, I drift in the lonely places, but not to exonerate  
my loneliness. I go to be among the women who congregate there.
I hear the moan of their siren ballad, & I answer to the name they
call me: avaricious of whores.
 
she doesn’t need to be pretty, but must embrace a oneness with the
earth  –  that blatant sexual rapture that’s rich in the soil. every girl
wants a man who goes deep, & maybe my heart broken poems  
make me longer & thicker.
 
when the bars & the dancehalls are barren, I return to the woman  
who waits sadly for the smoke of my battles to fade. I’ll serve my
sentence in her bed, crimes of copulation for which justice is  
severe, & count off my sins by each orgasm.
 
at dawn, the sky gives away its stars; she gathers a few to hang on  
a silver chain around her neck, but I tell her the stars don’t belong
to any woman, & she weeps.
 
she’s only as beautiful as I allow her to be…
 
 
(Model: Laura Antonelli)