Love Song for My Devil
My worship of you ends in dismay
as my wound becomes a dispatch
full of sweet licorice lies.
Adultery becomes advantage.
Motels morph into mother-cells.
My cheap dress becomes an even cheaper dressing gown.
My shoes with their stiletto heels,
now walk on stilts, unable to carry our heft.
A fetish for pain is transformed;
remakes itself into fetters for the painted lady’s
transistor.
Was your mastery of me,
a mastodon’s
bondage to bone?
Did lust overcome fear
as a lute overcomes feathers?
Or is memory just a whisper,
a mendacity, a whistling swan?
(From Loose Change — Ghost City Press, 2023)
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