TWILIGHT OF THE ILLICIT

—after Djuna Barnes

YOU, with your big blank eyes 
And your clammy hands,
You spotted me right away 
With my slack'ning arms.

With satiated fingers dragging 
You aside to my bedroom.

Spreading your legs apart like 
A pair of heavy plumbers pliers.

With discs upon your eyes like 
A full moon in sullen disguise,
And great ghastly loops of tight 
Curls snared in your ears.

Your closed eyes hand-beaten
Down there where you die.
My lips, long lengthened by sad

Sailorboy words unsaid.

One sees you sitting in the sun 
Asleep, all those young gifts you

Had and didn't keep, I grieve that  
The altars of your vice lie deep.

You, the twilight embrace of 
All my fire-wet Big Apple dawns;

You, my massive American Tree

Illicitly spawning yourself in me

While others shrink in shame 
You have borne me again & again

From up here in Columbia Heights

All the way down to Brooklyn Bride