among the everywoman

Maybe I was trying to

figure you out and ravage

your body the way

time has ravaged it.

Or maybe I was just attempting to

make conversation with your lips and

persuade you to reopen

old festering wounds and share your

closed heart with an open heart surgeon

who would instead be operating on your brain,

because that’s where the real skill lies.

Or maybe I was alone

without a candle in the dark and

didn’t have the wherewithal to

whistle while I cursed the wick and

forgot to celebrate the Flint

as I watched my lady’s flinty heart

dimming in that fingernail in the sky moon.

Or maybe I was excelling as an underachiever

or achieving delusions of conspicuous splendor.

Or maybe I was neither in love nor in lust;

I was just alone and nonplused and

unwilling to put up much of a fuss

when you opened your lovin’ vein

with that blunt instrument

called your brain and let it spill out

all over my golden-black flame of hair and

drip beneath my astigmatic stare.

Or maybe my mouth ejaculated

when my tongue should have been

on a leash, and perhaps I unleashed my id

when my superego should have been

refereeing, and when my ego was taking

a meeting with my looking-glass self.

Or maybe the blame lies

with the lie of a shy guy

treading enigmatically in front of

the sphinx and musing in front of

his muses as Medusa washes

the original serpent of sin

from her reptile coif

with an anti-venom

made from the blood of Christ and

displays her scarred neck

for Perseus and celebrates her disembodiment

from a netherworld that eschews

phantasmagoria and prevents her

from throwing stones at glass ceilings.