In the Manner of SD

The day that I found art in my first name

Was the same day I saw hell in my last.

There was a girl there, of course,–

Touching a wet finger

To a postage stamp,

Pursing her lips

On the double bed.

I went to kiss

The cat-tongue rough

Of her each bent knee.

I was weak then, not yet a liar.

One of us had said,

What we do is our own business.

Then we broke the windows,

And looted the store.

“In the Manner of SD” is from Backwards Days (Penguin, October 2007), and was first published in Terminus.