I take note of my daughter's morning smile
and my wife's warm arm holding her close...
lapsed here for a moment
before I begin
to scuttle off into a detailed afternoon
of car horns, lunch counters,
damsels doing the crosswalk, and
cigarette butts
on the sidewalk...
to take a break I sit outside a café on Front Street
and slowly deteriorate,
flake by flake,
flaking off from my twitchy laugh
while I fill up milligram at a time with tar and toxin
enjoying the view between buildings of the sun easing
into the river
with a satisfied loneliness of life without
unstoppable expansion.
For a second I am one without fear
dumbstruck to think I know what 's killing me.
It isn't the white cat at midnight
or linen on the line.
these compulsions live in a
gray pheromone constant
and skulk along the walls of alley deep porno huts
become fleshy ravens swarming me fetish over fetish
with high heeled promises that lace up
slender calves until all is a soft flurry
from their beating buxom wings
powder, pill, or liquor form,
race car red nail polish under black sox
purple iris' that swirl together while hypnotic lips
coax me into a fear psychosis familiar as a fingertip
on my skin from being molested as a boy
and my hair razes and I am convinced
to loosen my control
one notch
at
a
time
this time though, I could leave
but I am numb to forethought
as words she did not think of slither
from her tongue like lavender to lather
The closer to getting caught:
The deeper my depression::
The longer the period between attacks.
Is what I tell myself at each turn
to the addiction of betraying my desires
I am amnesic to the fact that it will become too late;
that each character suicide tattoos me
while the corpse remains without remorse
as I, the killer,
unable to love a little bit less
enhance the powers that have always enslaved me
Maybe I'll see you tonight, she says
car already packed for a weekend
away
Yes, when this is over I'll cook
three dinners for you
It's the way she now applies her
makeup like how I used to ask her to
The way the bathroom door latches
when she's in the shower
The water over her naked body
and the hard splash laugh at me
from the tub floor
The new shoes she bought
The new jacket
Shirt
Pants
Skirt
The new panties because she's "needed them for
a while now."
When packing on my last day, I ask
if I can take one of the steak knives
She says,
Those are my knives and I need them.
Eric Smiarowski is late for work. He has a hangover from a poetry event last night. He writes poems and raises a couple o' critters. He has a great wife that takes good care of him. He cooks and serves the food. Eric Smiarowski is an all-around good guy.
You can listen to him read his poetry at his MySpace page.