for Brian
you still live there cupped in the mind’s hand
like a warm dark place I crouch in when the
hunger is too great a sweet crisp scent that
imbues me rolls down my throat into me
a sugar rush to meaning’s vacuous
withdrawal and I dwell there my body
trembles with the life of you the charming
overbite the sweet dimpled skin the soft
intellectual stomach the wit and sick rare
warmth that radiated crooked-grinned and
brown-sparkled into me and me bursting
and giggling sexless petals opening
inviting my only virtue then my sweetness
my total devotion to every morsel that
graced my thirsty lips every touch viscous
and playful every moment in that house
that smell old and musty but so deliciously
you-smelled years later Max howling on
your bed and me inhaling the scent of your
shirt regarding your pictures of manhood
estranged and desperate to have known you
to have had you taste of me ripened to have
had those last empty ashen moments (fateless
and cruel) annulled by something richer
nevertheless I am content to have your life
eternal and light-ridden pocketed safely
a sweet balm a selfish tribute to childhood’s
succulence a dark reminder to drink of others’
cups open and brave and swallowing whole