If I were to take your life, I would take eyes
only, pulling those lashes off the lid with cloying
attar, and they’d fall like blanched rose petals, the glands
and the sebum rainproofed like mascara
my eyes haven’t rubbed on you in months. I would
eye each iris, notch tiny tears
first, deliberately, violently
as though taking down two outlaws
and then I’d stare into the scleras,
those ample palominos, to pat their wet noses
so lovely, so satin, they leave lace frail and tearing
from the curtain that fastens them to earth
the way the salt lines cross the eye
drawing the message of love and how
we can never erase such vows
though they walk off like rainbows
and dart through synagogues and churches
who press them like dead flowers in prayer books
and the succor scoured out of my greedy eyes
emanates over you as vengeful – vengeful not.
In love with your eyes, and out again—
Who can say the word love when you
shoved me past wrestling this ghetto ditch?
Me, I’m inclined toward peril at the hub.
Hard core lace in my eyes with fire. I lean
toward what will sear and sparkle, then curl
back to water when too near. Think of me
exposed to bare light and left to recuperate.
I won’t. I halt my scotoma step before you,
mind lashed by cold that blasts your eyes blind
as if they were birds flying all our beguiled and beginning thoughts.
I offer them back to you like candies for your love
for the hard parts, sleep and the handful of sky, between.
