Prufrock’s Lament
A Month of Poetry (Vivisection)
Lie down, still. Lie down like a patient anesthetized
on the operating table. Cross your hands
at the wrists, for me. Take a breath, make it
deep. Make it deep to drown your maladies
and desperate enough to pose for acts of vanity.
Ease your eyes — remember the film of your life?
Let it unspool past the last dark highway mile marker,
let the square edges hook into your sides,
let the projector display double-exposed
home movies of your family frolicking at first snowfall.
Don’t flinch, dear — don’t pull away when I touch
between your lips, when I inspect your tongue.
Pink muscles gathered in a wet cavern piled up.
I clamp it between my thumb and finger, soft
enough so you still may speak but won’t slip away.
How does it feel then? With my hands curled around
your head like fog or some shaking cat’s tail.
You shimmy like a pet, you’re playing dead and
pretending to push away my hands, winking.
I stop and place both my hands around your neck.
I handle you softly as a peach, gripped purple and
firm like an old bruise. You gasp and let out
an exquisite grin of excitement. You are no longer
asleep — you are awake in this space of pleasure.
Alive, aching, and needing to be filled and unspooled.
It’s October and that means that KG is kicking off a month of poetry today. As my good friend Amy Lee said “Remember, the whole point of Poe-tober is not to churn out verse but to immerse ourselves in poetry. What a beautiful endeavor…”
I couldn’t agree more.
If you liked my poem please clap (50 times!), highlight your favorite bits, and comment. Please subscribe to my Medium page if you would like.
Thank you to Growl Publication for hosting this party. Thank you for reading!
