BANDAGING STARLA
She is a thurible
thrown through a stained-
glass window, knows
the ecstatic handstand,
somersault, curious
about every kind of ceremony.
Let me buy you,
let me buy you a drink,
holding her head in the Hunt
Club, drunk and leaking.
At first she remembers everything,
then starts slinging it off. The concierge
knows her name, all her lovers
in the same room, pare, paring, parings,
a pool on her pillow when she wakes,
pink or red or blue,
her sick sheets pulled down.
Love me.
He wears rubber gloves.
He holds her arms.
He presses firmly.
He is always correct.
He will not give up.
BEAUTYWAY
Too much goddamned noise.
I promise, they will take this away.
Blessed in mouth and tongue,
at your best when you are erect.
The lesser despairs:
your sister who looks like Clark Kent,
the clumpy brown shoe, the epileptic.
I am inside the battering cage.
You can't imagine the things that happen
when you let go of the wheel, just let go,
just like that, let it pound through your fingers,
it spins so fast, just like that
once you stop paying attention,
and this becomes praise.