Pivot and Hum
BY PHILLIP B. WILLIAMS
This is where I called for God
and you smiled. This is where
I tried to say enough, but only gasped
my breakage, bucked like a mare.
Beast breathing hyperbole. Slow
don’t—I said don’t to the music,
my body’s syncopation: ass clap,
uncanny fetal curl, bruises to lick.
I said don’t beneath the white pillow,
said white pillow but meant my teeth
were learning each feather. Bone crack
played back like a laugh track.
I was naked when I was the pillow. Then
I was not pillow but stone, hardened by
what you called devotion. Gods call
things other things all the time: mine
meaning love, love meaning attention
falling beyond indifference. This is where
I call you God and laugh, a minor
lapse: I make due, am inner-snared
and pose macabre, my spine-curve harsh.
I’ve lost your name in my mouth’s keen dark.