Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa

      & then huge white spaces

      fell.

      Come over here & lie down

      within these chalked contours.

      Okay. From this position,

      the point of entry

      was a gate …

      the two lovers,

      the way their legs were tangled,

      he was still inside her.

Two

      The dumb aura

      deserts its guts

      inside the queen

      bee. The drone’s genitals

      tear out like a blind eye

      extricated in each honeyegg.

      Sexual cadenza

      of the praying mantis—

      after her acrimonious mate

      has been forced to eat

      the song of his presence

      his head is gnawed off

      like a half-green

      rosebud in the dirt.

Beg Song

       . . where geometry borders on dream, and where the duende wears a muse’s mask for the eternal punishment of the great king.

      —Federico Garcia Lorca

      Foolhearted mindreader,

      help us see how

      the heart begs,

      how fangs of opprobrium

      possess our eyes. Truth

      serum: how the index finger works

      up into love, how the greased hand

      slides up the wombholler of madness

      & rebirth, whispering:

      Look, back of the eyes. Each

      gazes into its fish heart, final mirror

      of beauty & monkeyshine.

      Run your tongue along

      fear in the frontal lobe.

      Introduce us to that crazy man

      with his face buried

      in your hands.

      In the slack bed, meat

      falls through the door

      of itself. Soul of a lamp.

      Slipshod genius, show us

      the cutworm’s silly heart,

      how the telescopic love-eye

      probes back to its genesis.

Death Threat Note

      Dear Poetry Editor,

      why did it have to

      come to this?

      Walk out any door

      & you will never know.

      Turn any doorknob

      & open a butcher shop.

      The chair rocks by itself.

      A cat paces the windowsill;

      the moon’s followed you home.

      Another set of footprints

      surfaces in new snow.

      At any moment

      a steel door slams

      & locks a man in an icehouse.

      I see Weldon Kees’ car

      parked on the Golden Gate Bridge.

      I’ve fallen in love

      with a woman’s hands

      on deathrow. Listen, a knife

      can heal your mouth.

      It’s no good to fall

      pointing to the North Star,

      moaning foxfire.

      The meat wagon

      runs off the road.

      I don’t give warnings.

Child Stealer

      You grin like a grape

      peels open. One more step

      & you will find yourself

      lost in a room—

      ten colors from floor

      to ceiling in the old house

      near the boxwood grove.

      Let me kiss a tattoo

      on your forehead.

      You will come to love

      this place where sunsets

      hang red lanterns

      in the windows.

      For them to take you now,

      will take nothing

      short of death.

      They say something’s wrong

      with me upstairs,

      & their eyes stare me down.

      Torches in trees creep forward.

A Poet Whose Photo Never Grows Old

      Snow is a white horse

      around the bends of oaks

      again. Someone you loved

      now rocks herself

      asleep in the ground.

      The young coed curled

      against you like a rainbow,

      blood of a new season

      connected to a distant land.

      Your eyes were once lethal

      in a way you’ve seen nightbirds

      erase shadows & burn

      a slow flame of songs,

      the way you’ve seen a goddess

      stooped over an old machine

      whining like a violin—

      what you call “these small miracles,”

      the way you’ve seen roses released

      from manure in a field.

Poetics

      Beauty, I’ve seen you

      pressed hard against the windowpane.

      But the ugliness was unsolved

      in the heart & mouth.

      I’ve seen the quick-draw artist

      crouch among the chrysanthemums.

      Do I need to say more?

      Everything isn’t ha-ha

      in this valley. The striptease

      on stage at the Blue Movie

      is your sweet little Sara Lee.

      An argument of eyes

      cut