Do the Dead Know What Time It Is? - Kenneth Patchen

The old guy put down his beer.

Son, he said,

        (and a girl came over to the table where we were: 

        asked us by Jack Christ to buy her a drink.)

Son, I am going to tell you something

The like of which nobody ever was told.

         (and the girl said, I've got nothing on tonight;

        how about you and me going to your place?)

I am going to tell you the story of my mother's

Meeting with God.

         (and I whispered to the girl: I don't have a room,

        but, maybe . . .)

She walked up to where the top of the world is

And He came right up to her and said

So at last you've come home.

         (but maybe what?

        I thought I'd like to stay here and talk to you.)

My mother started to cry and God

Put His arms around her.

         (about what?

        Oh, just talk . . . we'll find something.)

She said it was like a fog coming over her face

And light was everywhere and a soft voice saying

You can stop crying now.

         (what can we talk about that will take all night?

        and I said that I didn't know.)

You can stop crying now.

untitled 8 - Mira Gonzalez

it is 2:05 in the morning

your foot on the brake is preventing the car from drifting backwards

he is kissing you first deliberately

then in a lazy or confused way

you know he is trying to communicate something important

and maybe he has wanted you for a long time

but his tongue is moving around your mouth

you begin to wonder if he wants to kiss you

or if he wants to push his way through you

you can see his bedroom window from where you are standing

he is climbing over fences and unlocking them from the inside

he says ‘go up those stairs and turn right’

you swear that you would have loved him a year ago

and every day since then

you are waiting at the top of his stairs

you don’t know where to look or what to touch

you are thinking about the ‘check engine’ light in your car

you are aware of certain things while he has sex with you

helicopter noises through an open window

a bottle of blue cough syrup

street signs indicating the direction to an eastbound freeway

he is strong and gentle and you wish he was only one of those things

he is tracing his fingers across the edge of you

everything is quiet other than a barely audible sound

in the space between his arm and his shoulder

he says ‘why are you sighing so much’

you say ‘that is just how I breathe’

he says ‘you don’t want to be here’

for one I knew - Charles Bukowski

Of all the iron beds in paradise

yours was the most cruel

and I was smoke in your mirror

and you sluiced your hair with jade,

but you were a woman and I was a

boy, but boy enough for an iron bed

and man enough for wine

and you.

now I am a man,

man enough for all,

and you are, you

are

        old

not now so cruel,

now your iron bed

is empty.

Beauty - Warsan Shire

My older sister soaps between her legs, her hair

a prayer of curls. When she was my age, she stole

the neighbour's husband, burnt his name into her skin.

For weeks she smelt of cheap perfume and dying flesh.

It's 4 a.m. and she winks at me, bending over the sink,

her small breasts bruised from sucking.

She smiles, pops her gum before saying

boys are haram, don't ever forget that.

Some nights I hear her in her room screaming.

We play Surah Al-Baqarah to drown her out.

Anything that leaves her mouth sounds like sex.

Our mother has banned her from saying God's name.