I Told You

You say I enter you
like magician
who scratches the bottom
of an old top hat
in search of a rabbit,
or like vet arousing a cow
to ease artificial insemination,
or like beggar
scanning the depths of a public bin.

I say:
press your hands against the floor,
rest your ankles on my shoulders,
keep your buttocks up,
it will hurt less.

You say:
I can't breathe,
blood is rushing to my head,
your nails are piercing my right ankle.

If you don’t shut up…
And If You Don’t Shut Up gets
inscribed in your blood stream
with letters made of
faeces, sweat and Crisco.

You see the things you make me write…

Don’t you realise, I say,
that the scratches on your ankles
are the imprint of your pulse,
a cardiogram, the completion of a track from your heart to your intestines, from your rectum to my fist, from my elbow to my torso, from my heart to my left hand, and from my nails to your skin?

Don’t you realise it hurts, you say.

I push. You shout.

You say I exit you
like teenager
who’s forcefully pulling
the lever on a pinball machine
to beat his companions
or like warrior
withdrawing a sabre
from a rusty sheath
or like torrents
of acidic sharp
diarrhoea.

 

The Fool

I chase the spider that slipped
from soft kisses through my throat.
I sink my arm, I reach my lungs,
I grab only smoke and ashes,
nail dirt, sleep and craggy fluff.
The spider evades the bait,
the hook hanging between ducts.
I push my arm further in.
I research every corner
in which the spider could hide.
I reach and tag my inner organs
in alphabetical order.
In Latin if it suits me;
some of them require Greek.
I rename the coarser bits
with euphemisms I’ve heard.
But I must invent new words.
The ink melts with all these fluids,
which evade me like the spider.
I grasp a mesh without a name.
Cobweb? Spider? Tentacles? Legs?
Outer organ? Pubic hair?
I pull out and the rest follows,
my fingers hitched in the muddle,
a tangle of countless threads
hair, ducts, veins, muscles and nerves.
When it all comes out unfolded,
reversed skin clung to my bones,
distorted mirror of entrails,
(sticky blood keeps it in place)
I’m ready to kiss my lips.

 

© 2006 Ernesto Sarezale - Contributor's Bio