FOR JOHN, AFTER A PARTY

-After Frank O’Hara

We do not always know what the other is feeling. 

Last night, slurring on homemade spirits of ripe summer, 

I spoke of nothing other than you

and the people I hate. 

         Darkening the threshold of tongue 

with lambs’ blood, we pass over the splintered frames

of family homes       in search of the irony. 

Isn’t it wrong?      

to return        every night       in want of the metallic taste 

of payment, stooping into valleys so near death

        the needle closing round        the distant sight 

of your cigarette cherry          

     sour and red. 

You tell me what you ate today in order of memorability, 

I assume we are speaking chronologically, 

and end up scolding you for having tequila and sherbet 

   before your toast. 

Yet still, when my shame spilled, 

confessing abominations previously undocumented         

you told me about the horses,

           smoldering organs, 

the hutch collapsing on top of them.

Holding my hand through the holes in our joint stockade 

       we share these things          with ceremonial release       

because telling like grieving       spreads the ashes, 

so thin we cannot see them, peppering the ground 

in our condensed past.

Gorilla vr

In the zoo which displays only dead things,

you pass exhibits of snake skins, 

insects drowned in amber, 

and jellied specimen, of unknown origins, 

suspended in sealed glass jars. 

Enclosure to enclosure, you gawk 

at taxidermied pachyderms, 

tire-tracked tortoise shells,

and the blunt ends of elephant tusks, 

dyed ombre-pink to bloodstain.

Leafing through old leather books, 

you see birds pressed like flowers, 

feathers flattened in a peacock fan.

In the gift shop, kids rummage through

a skeleton sandbox, filling cloth sacks

with random fragments of bone.

Behind a metal jungle vine, 

the main attraction sits sequestered

the hollow conch of a silver gorilla skull,

and while we ask you not to touch it,

for five extra dollars, you can wear it 

as a mask, while posing for pictures.

At the park’s center, a whole building

is dedicated to the history of zoos.

Apparently, there used to be hundreds,

attracting a countless number of visitors.

One placard even claims, a long time ago, 

zoos held only living things.

he pours six shots

Buckling under, a blue-black 

     and dew fog, 

steaming moon fog, 

nightskirts     draped limp 

round the curves 

                 of an easy lay.

Downed nose, 

   snotting glue, rows of teeth 

turned eyes.

               A dull rutting, 

cleaved wrists, and body 

parts go flying.   

             Haze of he said, 

               he said.

He said: what he needed to.

A lady 

              ought not, should not, 

be seen in rags,         

            dripping 

a pricked finger pads, 

      worth of don’t say blood. 

Don’t say hollow 

                            or gray. 

             Don’t say stone. 

Already, I’ve said 

          too much.     Harbingers 

   mean nothing now,

muttering on the stoop.

         One

yellow-lighted window,

holding silhouettes 

             of living people,

tossing flour, like confetti 

from their balcony.

                                   Snow, coke,

                       powder, dandruff.

Dear winter, for my sake

cross this threshold slowly.