A Rendering

Dentist pinned me through the mouth,

a moth into a shadow box, shoulders

framed a house around my ears. Once

 

I was pinned to the bed—his silver armature,

sharpness in a numb place, gave way,

I would give anything—

 

the smell of teeth being ground to dust—

 

to not know what he’s doing to my body.

These things stay, settle in the back of my throat,

 

the dust, like before, when I was pinned, a corsage

through the mouth, the throat, flowering.

 

Might

You confided once that you fuck your pillow,

not a humping, like the oil drills, lubing and

inserting the earth, but up against the wall,

you said, like the pillow might turn around

any moment and kiss you wet on the mouth,

like you might reach down the length of the

pillow’s torso and trail your nicotine yellowtips

from thigh to knee as the pillow tightens itself

on your cock, you whisper take it all, and it does:

the muffled sigh of fabric and feather, rivers

pour from your temple; it’s hot in the pillow, a

friction trench, your palm forcing a wide brim of print

on the wall, you’re grasping for the pillow’s

hand to lengthen the last inches of yourself, feel

that silent arc reach out to the blank white, her skin.