Gemini (Birthday Song)

It starts with you

on a mattress in your parents' old room,

clipping your toenails into the room

like the room will fade

and you will move

onto other rooms

and you will go

to other places.

Then the wedding,

Then the woman passed out

in the driver's seat

at the order board at White Castle.

We woke her up and she went

'round to the pick up window

like she knew exactly where she was.

Then I wept

with my face in your night shirt,

trying hard as hell to say

"until death separates us,"

loosening the skin on your breastbone,

I painted your nails

and you sleep

while I write all this down.

There was a moth caught in the soapdish

laminated in lye

Will you still remember me well

If I don't get to two-o-o-five?

my dead line Gemini

When we're on different sides of the globe

I thought we'd keep our veins tangled

like a pair of mic cables,

And if there ain't enough slack to reach

that we'd solder them together

and across oceans they'd stretch.

Our faces reflected in separate windshields

and all our body hair pricked up

an elephant eyelash.

Should we be tempted by thief or saint

it seems I leave and you stay

to crawl the cage and curse.

But don't regret the done dirt,

there is no life plan set,

you just swallow the cold

and follow your breath until death.

Now even if the will to sleep persists

I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.

There was a moth caught in the soapdish

laminated in lye

Will you still remember me well

If I don't get to two-o-o-five?

My dead line Gemini.

Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.

Hair that once sprouted from my own

white wet chalk follicles.

I swallow a coal

and follow my breath

and I did it with the grapefruit soap

thinking of you.

Bathed, shaved, and oiled,

your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming

between the mattress and the layers of bedding

turning in your drug dry sleep.

When I ask you to kiss my pulse

you offer to start the shower.

I want a verb and you give me a noun.

What do you dream up while I tongue you down?

There was a moth caught in the soapdish

laminated in lye

Will you still remember me well

If I don't get to two-o-o-five?

My dead line Gemini.

You know my build.

You know my size.

The degree to which my eyes

are astigmatic.