Escape Routes

The one who says I love you when they feel it.  Who does not taste of other lives.  Who is only sunny breakfasts on city balconies.  My god who tells me:  you are forgiven of what you were born into, go now.  N who says:  You are allowed to have a light that matches your own.

Unholy blood. The cruel blood. The metallic taste they breathed on you. You are begging for the taste. You are begging for what you have no right to. Clean hands, Holy mouth. You will never have it.

In Missouri we were together:  red wolves by the river and it's easy to remember that fondly/ easy to remember just the sweet water call. We ran from the divers who dredged for the bodies of the jumpers from that high iron bridge. The song, this song of not loving a good man is ledge song, edge song, song of broke voice, tired            liver I keep singing until the birds tell me to stop and even go on past anyone's sympathy I can't let go.  In Missouri we were together.  Red wolves by the river. O I'm making love to other lovers and I've smoked the opium until I'm a housecat but what Meredith says most often is I've got to shut it with the heart talk/stop talking bout            how we ran from the divers as they dredged the river for the bodies of the jumpers. We knew the jumpers--I thought they might be our other selves, the divers too.   We could have been the river even; I wanted us to be it all as we stood there red wolves together by the edge of the river. But in all my selves there wasn't enough love and I can't stop saying this again, again, and over,           ever If we were the wolves, we were the jumpers and the divers and the river and still I wasn't. and I ran from the divers as they pulled up the bodies of the jumpers. This is the taste of looking back, isn't it? The Mississippi water. This is the last call you'd want to get/ I've sung too many times but I remember: In Missouri we were together and red wolves by the river, and we ran together from the divers who dredged for the bodies of the jumpers from that high iron bridge.