INTIMACIES

I'm sick,
I said.
My girlfriend
lying next to me
said nothing.
I tried again:
Goddamn, I'm fucking sick,
I said louder.
What else is new?
she replied,
you're always sick
about something.
Two black flies,
mad with summer heat
were either fighting
or fucking
on the screen
beside the bed;
the heat circulated
by their wings
& a cheap fan.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

WHO KNOWS?

where they are?
or who they're with?
but I have
my suspicions:
one,
I'm pretty sure,
is fucking
a Cuban donkey
on some Havana side street;
another lies
under the sheets
in a psych unit
on a mountain side
in St. Moritz
waiting for a soulful skier
to fly onto her ward
& pirouette around her privates;
and still another,
lost in a memory dream
crosses a wet street
lifting her nun's robe
across her father's sternum.

Imagination dictates reality.

Most likely,
all the old ones,
and ones yet to come,
are battling
old battles.
Reminding themselves
they've misunderstood
themselves & their muses;
that ambivalence balanced
on the tip of her tit
gives her
enormous pleasure
and her sacrifices,
while tragic,
are trifles
as a white girl
sings Mississippi
juke joint blues.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017