Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa

heal the earth

      under each footstep

      or what pulls me back

      to innocence like the tongue cut out.

      Mistress of Commonsense,

      perhaps it’s meant for me

      to swing open night’s door

      & catch you naked

      at the mirror

      trying to shake hands

      with yourself.

1938

      The granite-colored gulls unlocked

      their wings & the door to a wall

      swung open. Ghosts ducked through,

      disappeared, so much spinal cord

      looped & curved into spider darkness

      hacked out of a calcium tomb,

      where water screams back into you.

      Each night became a red machine.

      You were cornered in Paris, in the granary

      where the raw brain snorted

      like a blue horse & a moneysack

      of hunger growled. Where shadows

      of trees pulled your face down to kiss

      stones. Each day murdered the black clock

      of your voice, each day, each depravity

      a pretty woman might throw her arms around,

      knifed your shadow, Vallejo.

      Death wore out your boot heels.

S & M

      “Tie my hands, hang me up

      by my gorgeous feet,

      braid a rope-ladder

      with my hair—a corsage,”

      you say. For a moment I am

      a many-headed beast

      embracing a pretty woman

      in her sleek black get-up.

      Spike-heeled habanera.

      Take me away from myself

      & don’t make me look.

      The blue mouth

      begs for what it needs.

      Lover woman of the cat-o’-nine tails

      there’s a man wounded

      in your bedroom

      no medicine can cure.

      You whimper, you

      come like a buttercup

      opening darkness.

Stepfather: A Girl’s Song

      Again heavy rain drives him home

      from the cornfield, washing away

      footsteps & covering tracks.

      For years his eyes undressed me.

      There’s a river in his stance

      sweeping me away.

      He comes into my bedroom

      around corners of moonlight;

      unexpected, he catches me

      in his big arms. An ancient music

      at the edge of my mouth.

      He looks at me slantwise, warns:

      “These hands whipped a mule crazy

      & killed a man in ’63.”

      My hands are like sparrows, stars

      caught in tangled dance of branches.

      He raises my clothes.

      An undertow drags me down.

      His mouth on mine, kissing my mother.

Stepmother: A Boy’s Song

      Twenty years step between

      you two, only five between us.

      Unbroken woman who walks nude

      out of shambled wheat, my heart

      a pocketful of thin mirrors

      throwing your names about.

      You cross the threshold

      & beg me to flex my biceps.

      Remember, you can’t wash down suburbia

      with black coffee & tantalizers,

      neighbors goose-stepping jackals

      on leashes. See, look at me

      tear out handfuls of hair.

      Papa’s always quoting that brutal

      book, trying to get hills to march

      home. Your tongue lights

      the air. Tonight, I can’t help

      but hold your breasts till

      my mouth fills with honey.

      You’re dragging the dark

      waters in me with hooks,

      & I talk from under your clothes.

No Love in This House

      Tonight I touch your breasts.

      September’s fruit.

      Nipples, eyes of fire.

      I kiss you deep

      as a knife could go.

      I pull you out of your jeans.

      Black panties, red rose,

      my fingers find

      the center of you

      where the blues begin.

      I’m in a room of you

      where a white horse

      shockwaves. It’s hard to break

      away: flesh, wine, language.

      We curve into dance.

      When I drive myself into you

      you’re singing the name

      of a man in Rifle Gap

      with his cowboy boots propped

      on another woman’s kitchen table.

High on Sadness

      I think about you

      till you’re naked

      at a window waving goodbye.

      Till the bones come out,

      bright airplane

      on an assembly line.

      Violin bows, ribs.

      I think about you

      till a great beetle

      beams on six legs

      of unreason. I take you

      baroque ballerina

      into my arms for the last time,

      & your metallic feelers

      search the air.

      It’s