CINCINNATI

for Mike Ostendorf
listen to this poem

Drink a bottle of Tequila in the dining room. Expand internally. She’ll leave lipstick on the earthy portion of your cheek; lick your nostrils in multiples of four. Allow the wetness to harden. Then undress her slowly in a room fumbling with public television light where enormous shadows clench the curtains. A thick mutilated forest. When morning comes with birdsongs murmuring along the edge of a dream, do not awaken. Let the songs blur into a sort of caution as the sun slips across the room to paint her lips a watercolor orange.