Where I’ll Be Good

Wanting leads to worse than oddity.
The bones creak like bamboo in wind,
and strain toward a better life outside the body,
the life anything has that isn’ t human.

Feel the chair under you? What does it want?
Does lust bend it silly, like a rubber crutch?
Tell a tree about the silky clasp of cunt.
It won’ t shift an inch. It won’ t ache to touch.

Let me not cruise for teens in a red sports car,
or glare too long at what bubbles their clothes.
Let me never hustle file clerks in a bar.
Keep me from the beach when the hot wind blows.

If I must go mad, let it be dignified.
Lock me up where I’ ll feel like wood,
where wanting won’ t send me flopping outside,
where my bones will shut up, where I’ ll be good.