hurtle the cake.

              hurdle the grave.

tell the smallest dog

              your smelliest you.

erase the hand erasing

              the mouth. move to a distant

memory with your worst

              marginalia. or favorite

cousin. journal about it.

              type up

your review of the year’s

              first snow: a predictably

thrilling sequel

              to what the leaves,

not too long ago, said.

then, kiss the snow.

pick up a heaping

              handful & smooch it.

feel the snow

              give you smoochies back.

listen to it. listen

              close. the snow.

each fluttering little note of it

              saying, kiss me

& kiss me

              here & here.

tonight, i am the worst queer—i hate longing, detest

                                                                 yearning. right now, i am the worst queer

              poet—i don’t want

                      any synonym for want, any

                      sinfully great lyric ache. i don’t want to read or write a single

                                   beautiful description

       of distance. no.

i will have sex. i will have

                         close, verbal,

    smelly, emotional sex. i will have hotter than a faggy volcano’s

                smutty novel sex. & fuck,

                                 if i can’t have it with someone, i’ll have my way

with me. in fact, i’m already

                                  precumming. i’m leaking right into my left hand—

                                                                                              my nondominant hand’s

                                  powered up, & i’m going. i’m upping the speed,  

               frothing myself forth. i’m getting real friendly

     with my foreskin, leaving every lack

        behind. i’m loving on

                                    & in my behind. my right pointer’s voyaged

                                  far up my twitchy hole, my hairy legs are raised in the me-scented

air, the whole room’s fragranced by butt

                                                       & balls, & i’m watching it all in the full-length mirror.

                                               this creature

     so interested in his own nature. this researcher, studying

          & collecting data on his pleasure.

     i’m at play, i’m the project, i’m both animals

                                       breathing hard.  

i’m breath & both hands working hard. i’m hard, i’m hard, i’m my pleasure
                                          pleasing me. i’m my hole, my cock, i’m my cock, my cock,

           i’m cock & hole, i’m hole & hole, my cock i’m fuck i’m going to

take a break. let my body say, what. god. agh.

                            & squirm a bit

                            while i take some giggly sips from my nightstand water.

                                                                                               while i sigh, delighted.

                      let my body, impatient, exhale into a fuller  

abundance. this moment

                                   not about vexed want, knotted

                                                                 waiting but a true, green

                    resting. & just a different breath.

& then i’m set. ready & well-hydrated. one drooly

               hand twisting a nipple, the other

 droolier hand on my cock. a simpler arrangement

                                                  than earlier, but no less kinetic a combo for this

         late-night, night-long show.

                                sweaty & slow, slow & silly, i’m building

                                                                up to it seriously slow.

                            until i can’t. i catch my face in the mirror,

                                                                                       my unpretty grin, the honestly ugly

fun i’m having. look, i don’t need to be stunning,

                                                                 don’t need a thing, not a fuck fuck i’m

                                                       cumming, it’s hitting my neck,

                                                                                            my face, it’s in my mouth, i’m

                                                                               dripping from my lips,

                                                       i’ve got cum-breath, a cum-stache, & i’m grabbing

     pics. sending them from my phone

                                     to my soul.

                                          & sometime later,

     my soul is cuddling my finally

                                             soft cock. they’re glowing, still, in the stinky bask

                   of each other. & my soul’s nuzzling close, closer than ever to my cock,

                       while my cock, already a touch

                                 recharged, says, hey,

           do you know the term “philatelist”? i just learned this.

                                                a philatelist is one who collects &/or studies

                                                   postal stamps. philatelist, one who practices

philately—doesn’t that sound

                                        kind of like flatulence,

                                            a bit like fellatio? oh,

                                                                                i bet it comes from french—

                                                            why don’t we look it up?

& my soul is nodding

off, he’s starting to make a sound not

                                                        unlike flatulence—& loud. but sort of sweet

             to those who like him.

                                                              mm, says my cock, you’re singing

                                                              your songs again.

When did they show up, the not so little
hairs on my knee?

Do you, too, have a news anchor
voice going going in your head
whenever you read the back of the cereal box?

Isn’t it literature, the gatorade she left in the other room
the other day?

Hasn’t he sensed the needs of a tree, his favorite oak, at least?

Aren’t we in the traveling part of summer?

How did I stop listening to my need to be high up in a tree,
in any
height of tree, in it, at least?

How are you?

(Staying out of trouble?)
(Keeping a bee?)

Don’t you tell me a claw sandwich
doesn’t sound better
than a finger sandwich, you wouldn’t dare, would you?

If we were to slither now, hither would we go?