I

I learned to say you can do
whatever you want to me
before knowing desire’s
imagination.

 
II

I gave names
to the bodies
I shouldn’t touch,
 
incanted them
in the made dark rooms
of backseat, against-the-floor.
 
I worshipped their new names
despite myself: how
their vowels rang out
in my open mouth.

 
III

I bent low before
these bodies,
mistaking servitude
for devotion: as
 
the first man uttered
trust me, I granted him
each side of my face
until its flush purpled.
 

IV

What did I learn?—
how to swim
my changing body
like a ferry to desire.
What did I learn?—
 
at first, the door to life
and the door to the river
both only read open.

 
V

What did I learn?
—after touching,
 
while they leave
or sleep, in my bathroom
or theirs, the quiet ritual
of erasing them
from inside me:
 
blotting them
from my legs and hips,
confessed
 
by the lamp,
the mirror.

 
VI

I count and weigh
their pleasure
like coin
for the ferryman.
 
I walk with them
each time across that shore
from living to dead
to living.