I just wanna be your schatz. My charm doesn’t work here.

I used to be called the quiet one, with sad eyes in the corner of that bar.

All the white men want a Yoko for their ego.

Better than their stiff-lipped, crossed-legged, wife at home.

I don’t drink much, but buy me one and I’ll show you

just how far that pint goes. On my knees, for grace and gobbies

My cowboy hat and black boots, for dancing

for walking across the counter of this Bavarian bar, to you.

They call it the German Texas. Lucky for them,

I taste like Honey Creek Park, on the south side of the water

They never much liked me there, thinking I’m some

slit-eyed home wrecker, one scoff away from eating their cats and dogs

But they’ll hand me a gun if I ask. Because it’s our god-given right

as an American. See, I don’t want your passport

I just want a kiss. On my apple cheeks, and I’ll slide my face to the right

to catch your lips. The star-spangled girl to your German nights.

Where I’m from we believe that Eden will pardon even

the window-working whores if they confess.

That love is between a man and a woman

but fucking can be done with anyone, in the back seat of a Sedan

Is it the same here? I know you got a girl at home,

but I can be your wife for the night

I’ll hop on the back of your bike, or whatever you ride, Fallen Angels style

And we can pretend we’re one of those yellow and white lovers

Looking for each other to rub hands, knock teeth

Later, I’ll hold your green eyes between my hands counting stones in the mossy ponds.

Get closer, lemme tell you, we don’t have to make a promise to forever,

just make a promise to me, that you’ll wait till morning to leave

I used to go to service once a week, before I realized

that father never knew my name. And if killing this unborn baby is a sin

Then consider me a saint, for having saved mine

in a pickle jar on the table. I want to freeze dry and wear it around my neck

The rosary-wearing, bible-thumbing man, telling me

we’ll all be spared if we give $10 to the church every Sunday.

But I’m an American, though sometimes they tell me otherwise,

And I still believe in the God we see on the billboards,

They tell me “Jesus is coming soon”, but that’s what our

mothers tell their children too. Waiting for their fathers

The nuclear crises—men pretending they’re still boys

Mother’s forced to love for two.

Someone told me here, the Milky Way is ridged like the spine of the sky

Can you kiss me goodbye, drive me to the spree?

And yes, I really do believe it’s best to bury our dead

but it’s more exciting to sprinkle the ashes, don’t you think?

Baby, let’s spread ourselves all over this city, we can go

where no one’s gone. We can find our own way to heaven

a little life

to be someone’s wife

daughter on the side and

an SUV

uncapped lip liner

thicker at the sides

gloss in the middle kissed on two soft tissues—

—like a first bleed

prayer beads held between fingers

at the foot of the temple, knees touching cement

she asked God to let her see her only daughter wed

44. tailights on. rearview mirror fog.

belly full of liquid and stone

in the bed that became a field of flowers

hair in trash, wig on

Skin, smooth as a baby

no screams or blood,

only the wetness of her mother’s cheeks,

the spit on her sister’s lips

as she kissed the casket

the bulbs in her breasts that seeped into her blood

while the sheets were all white

looking for the exit on the freeway that would lead her to another life