He’s
more urbane than you’d expect,
and cautious too, lest the wild horse of desire
careen with him into fierce fire
and the troubled sleep that follows.
He is cleft by divisions, one side
heaving forever forward with me, the other
lamentably quiet most of the time
as we navigate our dark rooms together.
Once I slept and let him explore
the motor of my animus,
waited while he opened my chest
to read the cabinet of curiosities there:
a jar of dark glass enclosing a secret fetish,
the voodoo doll of my weathered body
(the needles: time, age, bitterness).
I watched in secret while he hovered
studying my barren shelves,
the medicine of calm – withheld – in his hand.
James Nawrocki
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