Antonio Burn
Flipping over the tar, sun drinking
behind your head as it beams with the sweat of July,
I remember how August looked on you last year,
how your lips caught each bead.
-
Your muscles bunch up
around my waist, pushing me face down
on the duvet, but my night terrors still
are of you breaking open (you haven’t
yet), seething only the terrorist screams
of a man at the mouth.
-
I rise from you like heat from the earth,
every open mouth turning
into mine, jeans ripped
in the upper-thigh crease
of my body you cup like a grail.
-
I don’t want you
to be happy;
-
and that is the secret
to this monstrous house fire in
between us, flashing wreck
that lies
-
at your feet, at mine,
at our doorways, in our hallways,
in the stomachs
of all of our friends.
-
They tell me often I do not need
to swallow all you serve, you spill
over my chin, but oh I will
-
take it, all of it—
and not in sips, but eager gulps
that hurt my throat—
your gasoline sweat,
igniting every inch
of my skin all at once,
-
so when suddenly night
comes and you
are spellbound, freshly emptied,
writhing like the tyrant you can’t help but be, you
fever,
this body knows where you could not go,
-
I go. There is nothing,
nothing that I will not do.
