Slaked
We who drank you,
swollen guts and stares
gasping on your aftertaste
blink blink blink blink
gorged,
we who drank you
are fat and sometimes religious,
primarily fat
(gorged)
only rarely sick
but round and your flavor
is heavy, permeating all
and maybe everything,
twisting smoky flavor
curling about then coiling,
coiling in phone lines,
we who drank you
remember
and will drink again.
Last Christmas still fills me,
gives me form
most sweet
most supple
like last Christmas
napping under a blanket
of contented St. Paul,
stretch sweet and supple
and believe in a holiday
watching television
and drinking one of those
"bottomless" cups of coffee…
(We who drank you
would board a ship
and sail far away,
far but for fear
that keeps us imprisoned
on land,
far away we'd sail
would we.)
And even without a tree
it is Christmas,
some of us know that,
critical Vigil Mass,
St. Paul is bloated with snow
for a holiday
and we traveled this far
to drink…
We who drank you
are passengers
on your sinking life,
we do not mind
though the ice be
more savagely cold
than your love,
dying out here
is peaceful
slipping underneath
the icy sheet
with mouths wide open
sucking in blue
lung-fulls
of you
though we are far away
and wandering the seas…
We who drank you
but it's Christmastime again
and it looks nothing like
last Christmas,
nothing but different;
I don't ordinarily dwell
on holidays.
We who drank you.
(We who drank you…)
Holiday cheer is undiminished
by a wrenching stomach,
heavy smoky you…
We who drank you
(gorged) Holy Day;
to sleep off excess Christmas.
Lay your wounding in my hair,
hide it and keep it there,
that's why I grew it so long
so long it nurses you, ministers
a daily dose of warmth and soft
full-bodied tenderness for you
for you are braided in my hair,
your teary cheeks damp on my scalp
and suffering binds you to me
to me you are the most beautiful
creature, your hair is a crisp autumn
dusk but it is too short and leaves you bare
you bare more than November branches,
a soul with the slightest pattern of frost
and the nearly winter way you clutch my hair
my hair is long enough for you
and me, a warm place to ponder
your wounds and how they lay.
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