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

~

I gave names to the bodies
I shouldn’t touch,

incanted them
in the made rooms
of backseat, against-the-floor.

I worshipped their new names
despite myself: how
their vowels rang out
in my open mouth.

~

I bent low before
their shoulders, their
stomachs, mistaking
servitude for devotion:

as the first man uttered
trust me, I granted him
each side of my face
until it purpled.

~

What did I learn?—
how to operate
my changing body
like a ferry: forwards

to the black idea
of touching, backwards
from the door that locks
behind us.

What did I learn?—
at first, the door to life
and the door to the river
both only say open.

~

What did I learn?
—after fucking,

while they leave
or sleep, in my bathroom
or theirs, the quiet ritual
of erasing them
from inside me:

blotting them
from my legs,
confessed

by the lamp,
the mirror.

~

I count and weigh
their pleasure
like coins
for the ferryman.

I walk with them
each time
across that shore
from living to dead
to living.

~