What’s in your hands?
does it stain, does it bleed
and pool in canyons traced
on your palm?
You really ought to cover it
with a dishtowel
or hide it in your armpit
it is decaying, a sucking thing
clearly;
it steals bleachlight
from my chandelier
glittering so prettily
on the silverware
I know;
you’ve brought a fetid lump of bogwood,
dripping in sour-smelling muck
to my sterility,
tainted its sallow whiteness
in moss-shades
my linoleums are all smudged,
because of your stubborn unity
with rotted things
I always said they would ruin you
keep it cupped, now,
trapped behind your knuckles
and hidden to any shine it
may deflower
go far from satins, my grouts
laid in zigzag so ash-gray and
clean clean clean
loose your aberrance
in the backyard by
piled eggshells and melon rinds,
buried in an unmarked pit
dug from clay-earth
Wipe your boots on the mat
before you come in,
scrub fervently the ochre patches
of filth racing
past your wrists until
steel wool and scouring powder
bleed all memory of decay from
my hoary surgeon’s den
if it’s going to be tears,
smother yourself in a handkerchief;
salt dries quickly
under these fluorescent lights
