(Horseplay)

Fighting

I.

I grew up a boy believe it or not.

Hit me back if I make you cry

if I lean too long

on your wind

hit me back

but don't tell

because I'm sorry

but

we both agreed to the rules

and I did not break them. Okay?

This is what you wanted.

II.

The flying knee to the soft of the back

that dropped him on the field,

a receipt for the cheap shot

(but less that than)

the hang-jaw What'd I Do

and Hey It's A Game, Baby

as he jogged off.

Baby, I'm Just Trying To Win.

So, now you. Now you. Now I'm you.

Running in circles in a cul-de-sac

from a friend

until we're tired and bored

and ashamed.

It wasn't anything.

He wasn't a friend.

We got high in the car.

I was sure he would reach over

and throttle me.

But nah, nah, nah. Whatever.

It's whatever.

III.

On the receipt,

she said to me

You should hit him.

He's a pussy.

You should just hit him

in his fucking face.

She laughed and said this until I was hard

for her.

IV.

Broken, as follows, out of order:

the bedframe

the clock

the photographs

the wall

the ring

the necklace

the other wall

the laptop

and two mirrors

because anger lends itself to cliche 

in that way.

V.

Under stale covers

swollen knuckles were compared.

This is not love

to be sure.

This is not--

The Dead Heart by Anne Sexton

After I wrote this, a friend scrawled on this page, "Yes." 

And I said, merely to myself, "I wish it could be for a 
different seizure--as with Molly Bloom and her ‘and 
yes I said yes I will Yes."

It is not a turtle 
hiding in its little green shell. 
It is not a stone 
to pick up and put under your black wing. 
It is not a subway car that is obsolete. 
It is not a lump of coal that you could light. 
It is a dead heart. 
It is inside of me. 
It is a stranger 
yet once it was agreeable, 
opening and closing like a clam. 

What it has cost me you can't imagine, 
shrinks, priests, lovers, children, husbands, 
friends and all the lot. 
An expensive thing it was to keep going. 
It gave back too. 
Don't deny it! 
I half wonder if April would bring it back to life? 
A tulip? The first bud? 
But those are just musings on my part, 
the pity one has when one looks at a cadaver. 

How did it die? 
I called it EVIL. 
I said to it, your poems stink like vomit. 
I didn't stay to hear the last sentence. 
It died on the word EVIL. 
I did it with my tongue. 
The tongue, the Chinese say, 
is like a sharp knife: 
it kills 
without drawing blood.