8.

you are dead. i am putting riddles
to prostitutes in transit.

your cheeks were pits.
your curls were flaccid
like my dick all of those years.

there are no children
to wear our hand-me-down genes
out into the sunlight, the green world
up up above the cavity i sleep and breathe in.

i am at last the last.
(before the flat line oozed
i bit my lip, tasted blood, fled)

children that possess not a mote
of my dust:
          julian tosses a candy wrapper.
          grace smoothes her skirt.
          vicki picks her nose.
          clarence whistles.
          bethany grips a brown tulip

the flower wilting is not me. it was
and is you, shrunk into a skeleton.
the bones of my bones quiver. the flesh
of my flesh sparks in your waxy fingers.

i have the devil in me.

Abba? He has just flitted past
in a pressed gray business suit,
sunglasses underground, swallowed
into the ticking tocking beast.

gone into the folds of time,
the folds of a dress, the folded
steel of a sword inconspicuous in His hands.