Two Poems

Porn was never the plan

[wpaudio url=”/audio/8_9/McArtor.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

I did it because it stopped being progressive, because
geometry is easy, because every triangle fits a circle
in all three corners. I did it because your description

of me should fit into a one-sentence caption. I did it
because it’s not religion connecting us, it’s everyone
being involved in the same conversation, as if there

were only one church bell but separate skies of which
the melody reverberates. I did it because I know the stain
of walnut hulls, and the single drop of the sticky sweet

offering of a honeysuckle bloom is more than
an ice cream truck could ever sell us. I did it to prove
I understand atonement to be one sky housing barometric

pressure out of the north and the other sky –just silences
copulating. I did it because compared to the wind
our bodies are sure to fail.

On playing chess at a dinner party

make the olive stuff itself
with the cheese

discuss the marriage as if
it were your own

yes, salivate

jeff says
white always
moves first

only hear voices as an illusion
to the things you wish he’d
allude to

white always moves first

Stay funny valentine

stay

as in

here with me

a guest moves the white bishop
of the game started
so many years ago

the busy tongue –