from O LOVER!

Sophie Bebeau​​

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X
o lover! I love you but not like poetry
and its epiphany its rules its college degree
this poem has no pedigree because I love you like a mutt
blowing bubbles in the mud with its snout I'm picking mites
from our blankets with joy! I love you in a smelly way
with a dirty embarrassing fervor in fact there is no love
smellier than mine! give me all your backwash your infections
the lint from your bellybutton our t-shirt cum rags I'll do the laundry
I'll give you all my most depraved poems which only count
when you read them anyway I want to make you laugh and maybe
get you half-mast or a little further and if you stopped reading right here to come
and find me in my laundry day underwear and fuck me
that would be okay because sex is better than very bad poetry
and better than very good poetry and that was the point anyway

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X
o lover! you are the rolling above-ground anatomy
of a happy life ruining everything with your brand-new idioms
a million ways to pet a cat making hay while the hay is hot
I have never seen a tumbleweed I didn't want to kick 
stay back! our colors frighten me I might disappear! you and I
we might make creepy music like the interlocking teeth
of two handsaws fucking or the snapping tendons of a piano
I was a precocious child installing suicide doors on my Barbie car
now I am your sick goldfish the upside down adult of your dreams
reading this probably makes you wonder what the hell
is wrong with her what's wrong with me is that I'm a stray
cat following you home every night and you keep letting me in
no matter how matted and rotten I am you keep making little kissing noises
I rub my face against your face and give you all my best fleas

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X
o lover! the heart of the world has been repeatedly revealed to me
in a series of increasingly erotic marching band drill charts
you have authored because you know that is the only language
I know how to read let us become indistinguishable and horny
like dial-up internet porn just two exciting clumps of fleshy pixels
give me unwavering eye contact while my straps fall loose off my shoulders
working my teeth over love like cud as I slowly fold and sink into the center
of the guest room air mattress I meant to patch months ago
love is constantly mutating! isn't that wonderful imagine two perfect tits
that become more perfect every year until they are fully decomposed
I am easier done than said but you have memorized my name!
for as long as you want me you can have me in fact why don't you begin
tastefully panning away from this poem as the world around us becomes
a rippling sitcom flashback as present tense wicks away from our bodies
 

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