Ode to Masturbation

because you
were never
holy
only beautiful
enough
to be found

with a hook
in your mouth
water shook
like sparks
when they pulled
you out

& sometimes
your hand
is all you have
to hold
yourself to this
world & it's

the sound not
the prayer
that enters
the thunder not
the lightning
that wakes you.

in the backseat
midnight's neon
parking lot
holy water
smeared
between

your thighs
where no man
ever drowned
from too much
thirst.
the cumshot

an art
-iculation
of chewed stars
so lift
the joy
-crusted thumb

& teach
the tongue
of unbridled
nourishment
to be lost in
an image

is to find within it
a door
so close
your eyes
& open
reach down

with every rib
humming
the desperation
of unstruck
piano keys
some call this

being human but
you already know
it's the briefest form
of forever yes
even the saints
remember this the if

under every
utterance
beneath
the breath brimmed
like cherry blossoms
foaming into no one's
springtime
how often these lines
resemble claw marks
of your brothers
being dragged
away from you

you whose name
not heard
by the ear
but the smallest
bones
in the graves you

who ignite the april air
with all your petals'
here here here you
who twist
through barbed
-wired light

despite knowing
how color beckons
decapitation
i reach down
looking for you
in american dirt

in towns with names
like hope
celebration
success & sweet
lips like little
saigon

laramie money
& sanford towns
whose trees know
the weight of history
can bend their branches
to breaking

lines whose roots burrow
through stones
& hard facts
gathering
the memory of rust
& iron

mandibles
& amethyst yes
touch yourself
like this
part the softest hurt's
unhealable

hunger
after all
the lord cut you
here
to remind us where
he came

from pin this antlered
heartbeat back
to earth
cry out
until the dark fluents
each faceless

beast banished
from the ark
as you scrape the salt
off the cock-clit
& call it
daylight

don't
be afraid
to be this
luminous
to be so bright so
empty

the bullets pass
right through you
thinking
they have found
the sky as you reach
down press

a hand
to this blood
-warm body
like a word
being nailed
to its meaning

& lives.