for Dan
If beauty comes
it comes startled, hiding scars,
out of what can barely be endured.
– Stephen Dunn
“Rubbing”
The bruises on the inside
of my thighs are there for a reason.
I know what that reason is...
At night, the moonlight casts a glow
between my pubic region, and yours.
Together, intertwined, we are a landscape
of marsh, rubber, goose flesh– a topography map.
As if I have the authority to say
your penis is shaped like Florida,
my vagina the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic,
that I think about your cock as I unfold
the Triple A road map of that peninsula.
I wish I really were a body of water.
Husbands return from war, overseas.
Wives dance naked on the cobblestones.
Like I said, I have a reason for my bruises.
A capeside town exists within them.