4 Poems

SIMONE WEIL READ BY MASOCHIST

my way is to shrink
in the presence of greatness

a disappearing impulse that reacts
in proportion to the degree of force

this is how i come to god

on my knees, hands bound
behind my back, begging

please, fuck me, daddy

GREGORY

sleeping in my mother’s apartment
in my hometown i dreamt
about my childhood
rapist, who told me that it
was a bourgeois notion to believe
that all my friends should
bring me comfort. i got
red in the face and wanted
to scream but didn’t run
or fight

UNIVERSAL MONSTER

there are all these little forgettings

like i can’t remember
what my nose looks like
under all these bandages

tracing the contours of this stitched
up frankenstein’s monster line
across my scalp

the doctor says i’ve got
a strong monster line
lucky in love line

now in my need for dramatics
we’re covering all the mirrors
and isn’t this fun

like we’re vampires
holed up in mexico

like how fast does a mirror image fade
when you turn away

ORDINAL

i like the phrase devil’s
threesome because it implies to me
the existence of a spiritual ranking
of threesomes

i looked into a mirror that said
meet the person most responsible
for your safety
and that felt like a lot
of pressure

ideally
i would like to be standing
between two large men
with safe hands and
the devil watching