If it’ll be your buss or mine—for me, better
that I should pluck fruit with mine own two lips.
But first you reach, thumb up to my neck—
thumb reading for the pipe-stops, dents in the apple.
Next time, I think I’ll be first to the buss—
see, the two swole tires to patch to each other;
four thumbs worn down by old cutters, shorn
and shaved of wrinkles, of liver-blots.
Better, I’d say, to be as we are, decrepit—spurn
new digits, too dull to handle trick-stops—
frustrated youth, that crumples talk-box
of ev’ry opposing beloved, that juices
the throat apparatus, like it would some
simpler and sugared fruit.
-2004
