There is an alley
where you can go,
where you can kiss
someone’ s mouth
until you climb
inside them, force
your way in, push
your cells into their cells
and become one
creature — angelic.
It isn’ t the way
you’ d dream it.
There is piss,
dew-damp moss crawling
across the brick.
Some nights it is so dark
you must enter only
by touch.
Walk by in the light
and it will seem
like nothing.
The scripture
is written by wenches:
4eva, L+ J, I. T. A. L. Y.
A heart jagged in two.
But what you’ ll make there
it’ s not love,
it’ s not weighed
down with that,
it’ s feather, air,
an at-once exultation
of being not
of this time, this alley,
this shitty
good for no one,
shut-down town.
I never went there,
I promise you.
I never knew
such sweet violence.
Though there are mornings
now, miles from that place,
when I wake
with the thought of it:
wet and bitten, half-
winged.