Dating a Drunk


    the perpetual present tense and lists
kissing an ashtray
    kissing a gin bottle
inserting a wet thumb into his neck,
its neck, getting stuck at the knuckle

        give up
            the idea of a cure,
the talking cure, the wincing cure,
the cure of rose bushes and long thorns
used for whipping, cold water, then hot

think of the physics, suction, vacuum,
gravity         blood flow
spills necessarily climb up the headboard

small bodies are drawn
to large bodies of water      
        thirsty around midnight you open his
cupboards while he's sleeping, the spigot stuck

the cupboards of his lungs
a wheeze of old lacquer and small slow beetles
something knocking irregularly
                       against the back wall

at 2am you take out his organs,
try to clean them with paper towels
          they curl and sigh in your  palms

the different shapes that glass can take:
shards,      shots,       windows,       globes,       cups,      pints,
bottles,  the different shapes this argument can take

the old accident, the spine knocked along the concrete
motorcycle treads along his scalp  

weaving feelers in the air, saturated  
    shoes on the wrong feet or in the wrong century

lips like a sloppy fist but still you
push      less resistance to your fists

I'm not in this week,
    he says as he looks at himself
in the mirror of your face, leave a message

you can smell him from the next room

the lights multiply and shout     you enter his skin
            through the cracks in his armpits
    the color of bronze paint, dirty dishwater, hotel room carpets

drowned ship
        full of old pocket knives, costume jewelry,  
full of diet coke and whiskey,   sour