Behind My Door

          by A.E. Jenks

      I know itıs you
      Behind my door
      Standing like Cairo
      with a lean black panther
      shadow.

      You got in your car
      coming for me no matter how
      far you had to go.

      Copper rain swallowing your
      brain cells
      like it did when
      I first kissed you in a new place
      I canıt remember,
      Only that it was new
      and Iıve never gone back.

      Your starving white mask is
      waiting for the lining of my face
      to enhance the dullness of your earth.

      Donıt you feel ridiculous for being here?
      Donıt you know that
      the colors are under the lining now?

      I know if I let him in
      Iıll be able to deduct passion again.

      My skeletal tact has obliterated me.
      I know he can touch me like heıs
      slept next to me for fifty years.
      I can pretend Iım not home.
      The stakes follow me, laughing vigorously.

      I open the door and look but I donıt
      let him in.
      The horrible feeling is back.
      I'm ejected from my own endurance.

      Tempted and assaulted by the
      absence of worry in his face.

      He smiles at me like
      he was on the plane
      when I flew to other countries
      for the opening nights of operas,

      Sitting inside me and underneath
      my companionıs hand as he held it
      Forbidding the tightness of certainty

      As I sat cross-legged in a sexy dress
      in front of royal pianos in candle-lit rooms
      he thinks he was the flightiness of the melody

      A rowdy young boy who knew he had something
      so feverish and good that heıd never tell anyone
      too much about it.

      Men have come to me with their circuses
      of wealth and dressed up words.

      Iıve slept on coastal beaches,
      Waking to fruit and wine
      as you were in Australia and China
      kissing pretty girls with a force
      way less than the one
      you kiss me with, right?

      Was I really the purest branch of emotion in you?

      You were gone this whole time-

      Mutilating me with the anchor of your absence.
      Why are you sure that it was the thread
      of that one kiss you sewed up in me
      that kept you with me all this time-
      Invigorating the corners of my Xanadu smile?

      I let him in,
      Craving to mimic the sly frown
      used on me by an old adversary
      So I can seem unwilling.

      Iım shamefully chilled just by his luxury.
      The taste of French wine on his tongue
      His ivory colored shirt showing
      part of his scented chest.

      Iım exposed. That makes me erratic.

      You ships dazzling dancers into my soul
      Crowding me with all the times I let you interfere.
      Iıve worn this subdued look before on tarnished
      streets.
      I know Iım gonna let you do it again-
      Burnish my life with that tough harmony
      That no one else could ever match.

      Then youıll get back in your junky car
      and take the hazy brick streets back
      to your world of inaccurate senses
      and sleepy television afternoons.

      You know youıve settled. You idiot
      How could you be okay with that?

      Go right ahead and leave me stuck
      in the shapelessly long way that I love you
      And finish suffocating for it
      until youıre dead.

    
    

    First GRIST On-Line publication, 1996. İ 1996 A.E. Jenks