LADIES

(after Ladies, Jenny Pery) 


By night we feast 
like the Bacchae. 
Drink ourselves silly. 
Dirty the good pillows, 
resort to sitting on the floor 
and sinking into dirt: 
Limbs tossed carelessly, 
layered and overlapping 
no end to you, no beginning to me. 


There is revelry to this festival. 
We become towncriers, 
prance through the city and 
hold meetings in the walk-in 
beer fridge just to remember 
what it is like to be cold. 
This week, all we know is warm. 


Get on the back of my bike, 
press close and hold tight. 
In the blurred camera flash, 
we merge and become 
one fleeting mass. 


Before we return from the wild, 
we pull three cards: past, present, future. 
Leaning over the deck, I feel our 
three bodies tiptrych and Venn diagram. 


After the amputative goodbye, 
I wash my hands in the airport and see 
they remain in my reflection. 
Halos of light, inverse shadows. 
My future, the cards say, is the sun.