Cupid (2000)

Well, you asked for this
or thought you did.
Staring out at the combers
of a moon-fraught night
with the hard salt breeze
so fresh & the wide sea
singing of beds and drowse.
You just stood there
like a door with the
waves runneling sweetly
over your naked feet.
So I shot you clear through,
barbed you balls to brain.
I knew I’d hit my mark
when the ocean leapt
into your eyes.
All of the nouns which
anchored you in one harbor
now scuttling loose on the
seabed and your boat
far far away
with no oar you trust,
no sail you understand
how to unfurl. No way to
stop the night now
streaming through
your protests and denials.
Well, you asked for it,
you belong to me now.
Not that I have the least
interest in what happens
next. I’m off: Tell the wind
if you must how your
poems blow like loosened sails.
Explain your sorrow
and guilt to the
million shattered
whelks you call sand.
Me, I’ve sighted some
other sucker twenty
yards down the shore
standing like you did,
staring at the swells
agape like a boy
who doesn’t know
he’s all trussed up
for a turkey shoot.
See the arrow
I’ve pulled from my quiver?
So long and elegant
and barbed so sharp
he won’t know
what began in him
til he’s finished.
Just like you,
lover boy.