Trespass (2 page)

       
somewhere. Linden wood

       
as cash cow. And a way out. If my father grew

       
taller that year, sudden. Reached

       
the high altar wicks, a Moses

       
in Egypt. Bigger than the priests. What if deus

       
ex machina. Or a catcher.

       
No rye. Rye watered

       
down. Rocks to mean rocks. Not

       
glacial. Not a cold hand

       
anywhere. A siren sounds

       
on skin. Maybe a pie

       
in the window. Adults made big gestures

       
with giant hands. He wasn't soft.

       
Boney, but not folded

       
like egg whites, hankies.

       
In his yearbook: “Aspiration: farmer.”

       
Tall as corn, as noon sun. Only if he grew

       
taller, sudden, he wouldn't be

       
lightweight linden, maybe a hundred

       
proof. She was proof. Girls

       
were softer. Maybe his hand

       
looked giant. And she lay down

       
softly. Like he was made to, maybe.

F
IRST
L
OVE

       
At the bar last night

       
I couldn't believe it was you

       
standing by the men in leather collars

       
your layman's jeans and work boots

       
the same tough suede I remember

       
below your vestment's hem

       
at altar boy camp, tea lights

       
in our cabin, I always hoped

       
you would choose me

       
to start the flames.

       
Now you travel the decade

       
of my spine, your mouth sudden

       
on each bone, I turn you over

       
my lips drag heat

       
from the thin chaplet of hair

       
shrining your navel, I hold you

       
like a chaperone at a theme park

       
when you held me as we looped

       
through air and at Mass

       
when you placed in my hand

       
a body I could eat.

I S
AW
Y
OU
O
NCE

       
on a Brooklyn corner, fronds

       
of palm, your sachet

       
of lemon halves, you ask

       
if I'm Jewish, how we

       
look like brothers—

       
jet hair, same skin

       
a tincture of chickpeas,

       
our noses not Roman

       
nor button, I want to appeal:

       
let me celebrate with you. Listen, my voice

       
can match the glottal timbre

       
of your prayers, let me unfurl the black

       
curls by your ears like scrolls, read

       
your thoughts, your oils fragrant

       
on my fingertips.

A B
ODY
G
LOWS
B
RONZE

       
the Belgian soldier

       
his uniform slung

       
over a chair back

       
creases preserved

       
a man with war

       
in him yet

       
retreats under

       
a studio lamp

       
his dense sinew

       
muscled how

       
a body glows

       
bronze under your rub

       
the artist's knife

       
his clay-tipped fingers

       
the soldier's blazer

       
in the corner

       
late sun sets

       
fire to brass buttons

L
ATE
B
LOOMER

       
Spindle-heart at fourteen,

       
and eighty-five pounds. But you had

       
a dusting of hair above your lip, dark stains

       
under your arms after relays.

       
White-primed, gessoed canvas, I felt untouched,

       
untouchable, gilt icon in plexi, I wanted

       
your size, a potency,

       
yeast that balloons.

       
Still I was

       
unleavened and wafer-thin.

B
RUNCH

       
Cold tea bag pressed

       
in a napkin, my father

       
picks at toast.

       
Bobby
, his sister says

       
there are some accusations

       
against you
,

       
your niece, well
,

       
she goes

       
to a therapist
,

       
he tells her to

       
shit on

       
your photo
.

       
My mother runs

       
to the kitchen and vomits

       
in the sink.

       
He leans

       
over cold

       
eggs, what's left on the plate

       
my mother comes back

       
a damp cloth

       
to her mouth

       
she moves

       
clutching

       
the tall chair backs

       
breathes in to slide

       
behind his chair, it's quiet

       
on Mildred Avenue, brakes

       
scream down Ingalls

       
my mother clears her plate

       
reaches for his.

S
NAPSHOT

       
Her therapist said find one put it

       
on the bathroom floor so she searched albums

       
for his face the picnic photos

       
at the grill his head smoke-capped limp hands

       
fanning charcoal then her wedding proofs

       
all the uncles in suits and one close-up

       
my father bow-tied tipped black

       
seesaw at his throat open smile

       
his tongue a small peak he's calling to someone

       
outside the frame his right hand bent

       
in mid gesture his fingernails a bit long

       
and in focus the tips the whitest

S
CREENSHOT

       
I watch the clip

       
of you moved

       
to pleasure, freeze

       
on white pixels

       
my hand rolls down

       
a slow storm

       
I move with your

       
thunder, we are twinned

       
rhythms, the joy

       
you shake from me

T
RANSFERENCE

       
I was working

       
in the theater's toolroom

       
when my father called

       
Mom told me

       
about your new

       
friend
and I thought

       
you can't even

       
say it and I squeezed

       
a pair of pliers in my hand

       
as the paint sink kicked back gunk

       
and hung up the phone

       
hung up the pliers

       
aligning their jaws.

       
In the wings it was dark

       
I instructed the actor

       
playing a waiter

       
how to wring

       
the grinder, crack

       
whole corns

       
to coarse pepper.

I
N
T
HAT
L
IGHT

       
he was all angles

       
L of jaw, shoulders a ledge

       
of granite, I thought

       
he seemed biblical

       
the perfection of the tribes

       
settling into his thunder

                                             
thick honeyed wrists

       
and I was yielding,

       
of linen.

       
Darwin would study his dense

       
bicuspids, long feet hitting

       
the earth, his cock

       
slapping thighs, he needs

       
me to praise him

       
he needs men

       
to tell him, or show him

       
or show on him when

       
that weekend in July

       
on the sandy cape that hooks a bay

       
the salt a skin on him, moonlight

       
violent with silver on him

       
the other man's

       
bright tongue

       
how strangers can validate

       
how that man knelt to him

       
and he comes home to me

S
PERM
D
ONOR

       
And then

       
a hatch

                    
threw open

       
a flush of blood, pink-

       
cheeked,

       
you broadcast:

       
They want my sperm!

       
You imagine your stuff

       
flying through tangle

       
bursting to a field

       
a privet of XYs—

       
flourish little ones!

       
They will spin

       
and set in that lesbian womb, form

       
bones, push white elbow and

       
purple cord into a dark

       
pixilated frame,

       
fine

       
set in them your link

       
that quiet boat

       
you send into me

       
that never finds dock

A
WAY

       
I pile books on the bed

       
in your place, calculate

       
the weight of you, I crowd