A Portrait of the Lover

I. A Portrait of the Lover as a Porn StarBecause you saw me naked and virile as a new appliance; Because you jogged with the angels and rode God's escalator; Because you were a light far off, wearing the sun's corona; Because I loved you like a clean, white dishrag; Because you bent me over like a rainbow and filled me with dew; Because we are every one of us purveyors of the sublime; Because I was too shy to tell you my wet dreams were about you; Because it was a glory-hole sort of romance; Because love shares the same economics as any human endeavor; Because every man is an island, we build boats to wreck ourselves on foreign shores.II. A Portrait of the Lover as a Cult LeaderOnce you held me like I was every Jesus that died hungry in the streets; Once my expectations grew big as a beanstalk overnight; Once you cradled me like a telephone receiver; Once I stuffed you inside me like chocolate cake; Once you were as vital as any instrument of God's will; Once I thought love could straddle two worlds; Once you were as distant and unattainable as better times; Once you sang the moon and the stars and the cosmonauts into orbit; Once you told me God must ultimately take responsibility for everything; Once you had no edges, just a million faultless surfaces.

III. A Portrait of the Lover as an InsomniacAlthough the night brings forth vermin like poppies; Although a memory is but an imperfect snapshot; Although you whispered needles in my flesh as patiently as any seamstress; Although you consumed me carelessly, like an American; Although we all must dance in the flames sometime, if only in our own minds; Although life is precious, still its long list of needs can become tedious; Although the crude force of our desire was a hammer battering soft flesh; Although on the 8th day God created the Bogey Man; Although God and his angels are in heaven, everything else is here on earth.IV. A Portrait of the Lover as a Witness for the ProsecutionIf I choose to number my days through the smoke-stained filter of a cigarette; If I could stop giving out love like a Coke machine; If you bundled me up like refuse; If I pulled my veins out of my sleeve by the yard like a circus clown; If sex didn't make everything as complicated as a mother's lie; If we could forget to become our fathers for just a day; If there was cyanide in the Kool-Aide; If you had the surgeon's daring to know me from the inside out; If you unsexed me quick as a zipper; If I wasn't acting hysterical, I was being hysterical.V. A Portrait of the Lover as a Serial KillerFor I know that when life comes for me I shall be alone and reading a book or a         newspaper; For when you lost me you sent out a thousand excuses to comb the countryside; For my journey to you was as short and accidental as a bad fall; For you stopped up the well of my happiness like a cheap toilet; For the lies, the abuses and the betrayals will remain long after we've both snuck out of         the room; For all those years, and you were only saving me like a receipt; For leaving you was as easy as changing my skin; For eventually everything unravels and we all must dangle.