My twisted arms as I study your mouth
For breath. The trumped-up light lands
And flares on what feels like instinct, lover,
Sister. I work significance
Into our proftles, in worrying down the night,
The ambulance not for us
While in your teeth a broken music winds
Its sad story to keep itself alive.
Into the ear a radio sends
Analog until it only spills
One message: forgive each debt
And the rest will follow. My numb arms
Weave in with yours and wasted
Time hammers on the wall behind your head
As I guard this story, this tongue
I keep you from swallowing, thick with pulse.
The broken and insolvent music goes
Round and round, halo of a headlight runs
Through trembling fingers. I have conceived
Of deeper alibis than even this.
I assemble a life giving myself
Nothing but particulars to end with.
DAVID LEHMAN
The
Escape Artist
A dark green room: the experiment fails,
And the leaves change color before their time.
He felt, though he had not committed a crime,
Like a gangster disguised in a top hat and tails,
Entering the lady's East Village apartment
To seduce her. If he should arrive out of breath,
It's because he knows that Eros equals death,
Though that's not what the church fathers meant.
