Anxiety of Influence

Darkness, and the sounds of the dark were devastating. I swear I could hear between the pitched eighth notes of my heart some hushed song I called Catullus. Odi et amo, it cooed, like a heart, but this before the curtain of wind, a coldness so cold it was a fever, a blurred antique thinking, before even I felt his tongue, whole, husband, against my face. Gentle does not begin to tell of the soft water that was his skin. Sorrow does. If he held me, it was the way a word holds an idea. He held me, his hand across the frankness of my throat, grotesque looker, feeler . . . When he was done, he led me past my anxiousness to the center I knew was there, had to be. Author, and not authorof me. Master, and no more master. I took turns turning without myself, thankful for once a man can’t see his own face, that dark fetish, my eyes stinging, my voice calling out against the sticky floor—and I loved it. I loved being there. A closing up. A rift. A killing, which is birds lifting.