The numbers you've amassed 
are many
ones, zeros, even eights,
you've lined them up 
and graphed them
on green squares,
and found the slope going down.

Is this figure a function of
which point in your bell curve?
Is this line the one
you hoped to acquire,
after you've sewn through 
their hearts
and traced the paths
with their bleeding?

Finally your pen's run out,
wizard,
and you find the sheet's too short
for another streak;
as I become formula
and we become equation.
 

Let’s start the ball rolling.
I’ll throw it from my end
And you catch it from yours.
Or miss, or throw it back at my face,
it doesn’t matter.
So long as it gets to you.

As long as it doesn’t bounce from
the posts in between,
causing cracks on floors
and painted walls,
already fading from the breeze
of balls flying past.

If you want,
you can take a shot
from the other side of the court.
Who knows, you might just make it.

I’ll raise my hands and clap for you,
big shot girl,
for always having the right moves.

There is no name 
for the spaces fluids fill,
smoke stains,
and the smell of friction remains.

We call them by the scars left
by rings and hands
invisible bands
whose emptiness demands
a little more than pain.

(You sat on these cracks 
and told me
what I can't reach can't be bought.)

Only between fingers
can we really feel
what other numbed surfaces cannot.

Two, Two zeros and a two,
that’s when I’ll see you.
I’m staring at the 5X7 table 
not knowing
if I want the numbers to increase or decrease
as I go down.

It’s time to rip the sheet
from the metal clip holding
jagged traces of previous 
moon viewing schedules
ignored.

(Albert was always wiser,
waiting for the fullest of the full
before going out to sea
but ending up staying home.
But that’s another old story.)

You chose not to count squares.
Believe me I tried to keep still 
each time a row ended.
Until they became columns,
the reds all turned blue,
and I had no more time to love you.

I guess knotting cherry stems 
is child’s play,
but what can I do?
In my mouth there’s a hunger
for red,
slender strokes,
wet circles
and moist air.

I kept the tip in between my teeth
for bearing.
I almost cut the stem in two.
(I should have been gentler
in trying to keep you here.)

Pleasing my self with 
petty success, 
the tiny knot held nothing.

But it’s better than
stealing fruits I cannot own,
biting through the pit
bitter and borrowed still.
 

The liquid rushes
like blood from a severed vein
to a wider passage way.

It runs circles through layers of gut,
held together by sphincter,
involuntary muscle,
human will.

If wars were planned
and lovers were made
over espressos on little brown tables,
the reverse holds true for 
the coffee enema.

You make peace with yourself
(begging for your asshole’s loyalty)
lose lovers, among other toxins,
even before you even expel.

Little brown shits will break any spell.