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This Corner of the Western World

Dark thing,

make a myth of yourself:

all women turn into lilacs,

all men grow sick of their errant scent.

You could learn

to build a window, to change flesh

into isinglass, nothing

but a brittle river, a love of bone.

You could snap like a branch--No,

this way, he says and the fence

releases the forest,

and every blue insect finds an inch of skin.

He loves low voices, diffidence

on the invented trail, the stones

you fuck him on. Yes

to sweat's souvenir, yes to his fist

in your hair, you bite

because you can. Silence

rides the back of your throat,

his tongue, your name.

This poem appeared in the February 19-26, 2007 issue of the magazine.