It’s summer. Eighty-five degrees.
We’ve spent all day on a blanket
in the high grass of an abandoned
cemetery. The backs of my thighs
are sunburned and tomorrow I’ll shiver
as the heat pours out of my skin.
Earlier, when I climbed onto you
for the second time, I could see
a row of headstones through the trees.
And when I rocked over you
their round and rain-worn scalps
rose into my line of sight until
I could imagine the bodies beneath them
propped up, watching us make love.
Each one of their wide skulls silently
smiled as if remembering something
sweet and fleeting, and not wanting
to tell me so. I needed to explain to them then
that my body has been a bell
that’s waited years to be rung by you.
That the cartilage grinding in my hip sockets
when I move against you makes a dust
finer than the finest semolina flour
and I pay it out from my body willingly.
That finally coming to love you
has been a hard-earned pleasure,
so that every time you enter me
I want to cry out, Bury me,
bury me. Put me in the ground.
from Beautiful in the MouthFind it in the library
Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2010
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