take me out to dance, will you? only this once, in 
shoes of pearly liquids
where I can hold my teeth in your hands 
and mockingly laugh at the seabirds
today on the balcony my feet looked old like 
crows feet only paler and harsher
it is in your absence that sometimes I screech 
like a beetle like something small 
I possess in abundance: letters of your 
commands. scars of your whippings. wounds 
from the thrust of your silver tongue. I lack: the 
certainty of what could/should have happened.
thanks to you I cannot enter the holy bath 
untouched not even for the crowning
but I still know to wash myself in brine 
before I  touch the foreskins of our fathers it’s like
there’s a wall inside me I can feel the words breathing 
behind the bricks and I  bloody my hands scratching 
what if I rip out my throat again or one of my eyeballs?
they must spill out like intestines must hurt like 
sickles cutting the rye must live
here now must be you yet not you must be the 
lonely minotaur glittering and dancing, 
     dancing