The temperature of blood
stuck in a shut vein like paper
cuts any question he never
thinks distance has anything
to do with Penelope’s electric
blanket keeping her warm
against the hole this side of absence
he left with a tip from Eros
filling her teeth with lead.
Gossip on a cruise for cross
dressing conservatives: he shaves legs
to chin, can’t be anything but a smooth
caress slipping to a stupor
and folded a white paper serviette
damp with satisfaction
he says means nothing the way
history collapses in a corner
of the sheet worn by a single thread
so many years ago the bed –
sworn to memory if Penelope
sleeps inside predictions the same
as the ring of her name, patience
is a virtue but loving Odysseus is insane.
The superstitious believe this love
is cold silence but silence
smells of soft falling rain. A romantic
says it’s a sparrow snapped
by winter, held to my clammy
breast, dead bird feathers, sensitive
as an angry dog. Cold clouds
freeze Catullus wrapped in Egyptian
cotton sheets, swaddled language
I don’t understand this blanket
of hate bites like yesterday’s
broken skeleton of sharp edged pain.