i've watched industry erect in the reflection of your pupils;
that i stared so blankly into, hoping to speak easy
against the prohibitions of your dueling shoulder blades
while my tongue leaves tracks along your spine,
for steam engines to swallow the arch
of your guilt.
i watched you dance all the way from Charleston,
South Carolina to Paris, France
while i sprinted in reverse,
sucking the hairpins off of swastikas.
the way your lips tiptoe across each other,
so tight yet, free in form
that every soft sigh of articulation tickles those trumpet reeds,
and the jazz of your thoughtless melodies
paint the soundtrack to the horror films
playing on the backsides of my eyelids.
i ate the rot of hell knee deep in bodies,
below the weight of a nations heart beat
so dense it ripples in your peripheral.
we played rifles like your trumpets
and made jazz of murder,
while you carried a piece of me
beneath the stench of liquor in your murmur.
the heart you've trader for a flappers lust
is the one i kept taped into the underside of my helmet,
so if my forehead ever swallowed anything heavier than your kiss
i'd have that split second to pretend it was your lips.
your womb as rotten as your liver;
your future as black as my past,
and i refuse to carry our sin
when it was you who made it
-that.