Affront (part i, draft i)

he sits three planks away from her on the sidewalk bench. there are three seagulls glaring pointedly at him.
breaking the pieces in her hands, she tosses the bread ends at the gray birds, and they hurriedly dive for it.

"i think they're pickier eaters than we think they are," he remarked to her, his eyes still on the seagulls, "last week someone gave them his whole hot dog and they didn't come near it all."

the hot dog vendor is two blocks from Yeats Park. on Mondays he restocks his condiments because everyone forgets to bring their lunches to work on Mondays, after the weekend activities are still hung over their minds.

"i know," she replied.

Steal (draft ii)

________________Steal
my affections and will in the
fold of Your love.
I've been stolen and the adoption
grows on me, in me.
Calluses on forehead
You never flinch when
my hands kiss your tanned feet.

And it's just You and me in the room
filling of smoke from my
alabaster jar
'smash'

Still now, surprised still
by the cristae that I thought I
knew well enough
to make a map of this matrix.
The solid lines of buzzing colours
have broken out
to a fury of static
black or white and movement that scares me.
And a wind blows down the antenna, into
my marrows.

________________ Steal, You are a Collector.
Shivering to see the tall necks
swaying in bark skins,
my eyes cold and dry in Your fierce wind
Fierce.
(You are a Collector.)
Like fire.
(Not a thief.)
To terrify with jealous love
and penetrate with washing flames.

Here, I am collected. And my adoption
runs deep
to waters I will pass through
and
rivers that will not overtake me
and fire I'll come out from un-singed
... I've been stolen by fierce love
and gathered to His side

Love

if i don't tell you,
can't look you in the eye
-split and splintering
-sputtering on the inside,
if Hallmark cannot say it
won't punch out my non-paper doily heart
if i can't pluck it out
off your cotton shirt
(pill)
if i can't sing long enough
for my lungs to weaken to bursting

if i can't

then know this
that your inscription on my hands
your circumcision on my heart
your piercing in my ear
your law on my forehead--
has not come off
since the day you
came and bought
me
saying
like you did on that day
that
i ________________be
_________________long
to you
and i _____________am
_________________my beloved's.

and when

i've felt the cool dew blades

of the greenest grass

stretching across time's acre

then maybe

i'll know what to say