Cardinal Failures
You’re out for blood and there’s no stopping
you,
no use trying to disguise it as a lesser hunger.
Released from orbit, all day and night your
motor
hums snug against the body’s confinement
longing to escape, twist from taut buds
before the flesh erodes into hanging ribbons.
You think I don’t understand these longings
and so hope for that last black surge and blind
swell,
that one rogue wave that will take us far apart.
I, too, cannot reconcile myself with this
ordinary thing called marriage,
one of those corporeal terms you can’t abide by
like a good and ordinary human.
The everyday’s too everyday for your comfort;
It fits your mind’s image only just well enough
to relent to the unease for a short time,
like a pair of slacks loaned for a round of
golf.
