After Daddy

They took the father-part while they
were there-the heavy bodies,
hairy legs in mother's bed. 
Then they were gone-divorced
or dead or disengaged.  No man survived
in any paradigm of family life
I knew.  At first I'd fret,
missing a brother, uncles, next of kin. 
Then I'd invent them all
and male best friends enough
to populate a largish town's back streets
while my desire moved into their tracks,
stepped down like some Persephone
to face an unknown lover in the dark.


Reactant   

The difference between dreaming
his hand on her breast and his actual fingers
is movement, mucous, that bit of spittle
at the corner of her mouth, the gut wound
of hormones elevated to emotion,
as though carnal diction came down to
Etta James and a double bourbon,
to an acid in the dried blood on her thumb.
When he rolls her nipple like a Cuban cigar,
her hips lift.  What's real then
is love's scuffle, her finger-nails, short
enough for scratch and sniff.  Still, it takes more
than minor damage to synthesize her missing enzyme,
more than ripping his shirtfront to expose his heart.

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