FOR SURVIVAL

I've seen him
blast thru all the bullshit
words capsule; over coffee
leave someone stranded on
fissured terrain
when he swung into
a mental bureaucracy of excuse
and staggered off...
Several times a year
cut up naked hands me
his mind on a platter.
We smash the walls
love creates, undress
politeness: perform
love's dangerous work.

WHAT I MISS
(Oh, to be naked again!)

I miss being naked with someone,
the clothes-on-lie nobody believed;
tried not to see
what they saw
down jackets couldn't conceal
as we walked along Montague street
below zero cold...

I miss being the same woman
whose breasts, cunt were hidden
as when they weren't,
sometimes
did my thinking; knew
it was my mind
made me desirable.

I miss fighting for space:
in bed, at my desk...
that presence I flexed my will against,
comforted to feel,

miss being not free
to stay out all night,
no explanations...
to get on a bus going anywhere
not return;
leave my life, if I chose: no guilt.
Freedom fought for
not against.

I miss someone hearing my thoughts
before I have words...
refusing to let me get away
with what others permitted him;
miss being a shrine at the
mouth of someone's worship:
enslaved.

...someone to love
bad boy of a mother's worry
a woman's arousal: my "wayward knight."

I miss feeling beautiful...
on a day when I'm sick,
upset, know a stranger wouldn't
even notice,
more beautiful than anyone I know,
beautiful as on that hot June night
his eyes
found my nakedness; wouldn't release it.

I miss being someone's baby
his incestuous love, jail-bait
secret;

someone to run-a-way with,
cross the borders of this AIDS
infected, social police state
to illegal 60's country...

I miss being screaming naked
beyond pride; anything.

US: I miss us

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