The Brooklyn Rail

Walking through Bushwick to Meet My Domme

Walking through Bushwick to meet my domme
beneath the unreal wildfire piss sky
I saw Shelley plain outside the weed bodega.
And I said Shelley I think we should take
a bazooka to the Reagan quote
on the IDT building in downtown Newark
and Shelley when I say America I mean
thousands of cops in dress blues
and they turned Central Park into a morgue and
I saw an entire man fall like a leaf.
And Shelley, poor Shelley, hands in pockets,
he agreed with me, he said Mike
I’m coming in like a tanker fire on the turnpike.
I said no one calls me Mike. He said
I’m Percy Shelley and I can call you what I like.
And my domme made us cinnamon rolls
and we had a good cry. And good old
Percy Shelley closed his eyes and said goodbye.

Safe Word

I said our safe word so you’d stop talking
about bringing your fuckboy on our date
and you were so sweet about it
I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. When I dream
of us I dream of an empty movie theater
showing the scene where the Kid dedicates
“Purple Rain” to his father. I never meant to
cause you any sorrow. I want to stay up all night
talking with you in Denny’s and stumble blinking
into 7am junkie light feeling scooped out,
repeating our sour mantras for the worse.
I spent three years afraid of air. And
Kansas won the title and my cat died
and I cried once for joy and I cried so many
times for the opposite of joy, which is not
sorrow, which I never meant to cause you,
but something like arson, a forest fire. And
I was the forest and all the animals were running
out of me panic-eyed, heedless, skinned.
And I could just see you at the edge of the burn
climbing into the copter with the inmates
and then you were flying away but no you’re
circling back. The cool red cloud is falling
on my branches. I won’t let this world kill me.
Then last night at dinner I realized the fire
had spread to you.
I’ll call you G here,
which is the first letter of your name
and also the first letter of what I call you
when I’m trying and failing to come
in front of you. I’m working from a partial
map, drawing lines, learning that the river
I crossed way back there is fed by this glacier
I’m stuck on way up here. Pain is repetition,
you like to say, usually more than once. I won’t
let this world kill me. It took its best shot.
And just look at me, coming forth
to see again the stars.

Domme Song 4

I got blood on your toilet seat
from the cuts on my legs
where you beat me with a wire hanger.
I used to think if I could fall into the dark skies
of Kansas in tornado weather I might stop
being afraid of everything long enough
to understand how normal people move.
Well it’s a damn shame. On the M train
coming into Myrtle a kid is holding
a homemade model of Noah’s ark.
To keep seed alive over all the earth.
I’ve seen tornadoes up close.
I saw one lift my grandmother’s back door
into a black throat and the water
rushing in and the dogs speaking
Aramaic. You made me take my shirt off
as we walked back from the coffee shop,
but this is New York City, baby,
the domme that never sleeps.
I tap one for yes and two for no,
I write the rules on a whiteboard,
I shock my dick fifty times while
you masturbate in the next room.
There are four classic ways to fold
a person. Endless ways to mutilate.
There are two ways to stop being afraid
all the time. The trick is to find
the one where you don’t die.