Off-Center

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Joy Waller

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still

dicking

me

around

 

clockwise, counter-clockwise

up

down

sideways

 

I want you to smear

this epiphany

all over my face

so that it really sticks

 

the stem of the cup

shattered

between

your fingers

 

that faded jade smudge

of a tattoo blinding me

shiny wet and slick

streaking over tweezers

and shards—surface

wounds but stinging

every liquid part of us

 

staining the kitchen floor

staining my jaw and shoulders

staining the hard stubborn silence

   sliding down the inside of your leg

   and dripping unspoken onto the floorboard

   still hot

 

breath not working right, ragged,

passing uneventful fitful

repeated suspended

between your mouth and my mouth

 

megaphone to megaphone

 

the various silencers we employ

the enhancers the denoisers

 

inhalation

eyelash

 

the hollow above your heart

flashing deep green distress signals

as you fuck yourself off-center

 

and your ribs

your skin

black hairs

the gashes and scars

 

respiration mute

glaze of touch

 

me with my own

spinning orb

of light-blue desolation

rotating the wrong way

above a destroyed throat

cutting deeper

putting down roots

crazed barbed-wire Zodiac

 

“talk-to-me” you say “tell-me-

what-you’re-feeling”

 

clockwise, counter-clockwise

screwed up

down

over

and sideways

 

“my-rotations-are-outta-whack” I say

“I-have-no-buttons;

press-me-anyway”

 

it’s that streak

of sunlight

around your wrist

 

it’s that bludgeoned sphere

of potential

on the chain

around your neck

dangling like a hanged man

above my face

jerking with your rhythm

as I focus

on your forehead

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