1
The Waiter Watches You
As if a woman could lease her hunger
to any bidder, then wear his coat
as a charm against the shitting birds.
A Soda?
The silhouettes sweeping now
across the sky hide the sharpness
of the beaks they bear. Distance is
a second skin. It may be the only way
to learn the anatomy of birds
is to eat them.
Waiting
Birds lost their teeth
to become more aerodynamic.
That you are not going anywhere
may be your best quality.
Why don’t people leave
seduction at this: a woman alone
cannot see all of her moles.
Silhouettes
Pencil in the air. Mascara on your wand. Across the patio,
woman in the window, you an hour ago, rubbing
glass, hand as sponge.
“What will it be.” Cardboard coaster on the table.
Because thresholds are sexy, we make them over
and over.
A Soda?
It is not the same to stand shirtless
in your own rented kitchen with cold yogurt
at the end of a warm, washed fork.
A Soda
Right, overheard: “The disorder
of lust.” Over her water: hands
swat air, tip to drink, nearly.
Someone orders quiet.
Not all birds can be
song birds, people forget.
2
Silhouettes
The weight of a bird’s feathers—more
than its skeleton.
Silhouettes
Cardboard coaster on the table—face down.
Silhouettes
Face is text, if you are thinking
of a man. Spine up.
Of distance. Height. Distance.
His skin. The riotous stubble
of your own thighs? Now that
is one way to feel an animal.
3
Waiting
“Holding court,” someone might say.
Legs flush with wicker, skin
newly riddled—an empty glass
is an object waiting.
Waiting
As if flight were
in a single feather.
It’s not.
The Waiter Watches You
In the moment before patience turns
erotic, then turns for good.
Patience
Of course, what is more intimate
than a disease?
An Empty Glass
Spine to the sun. And craning
to see it, as if, as through
a pinhole, when you
turned back
around, you might find
your image
projected into the chair
across from you.
4
A Soda
For the hand
that interrupts
condensation
on the glass.
A thumbprint quick to dissolve.
To see in a feather
the joke
of ornament
which is
Waiting
no company.