The Golem of Los Angeles

The Dating Sutra

94 The Dating Sutra 1. In Which He Writes an Email to Joy i heard that you were looking for me, Joy. i’m here. Put out your hand and touch this screen where pixels fizzle out like suns. The toy heart in my chest will wind down, stop. i’ve seen my death in the blank space that i embrace at night, that loss. You’re there. You understand i’m lying. There’s nothing there for my hand but dreams of nothing solid, dreams of grace, the way my stray cat, Shredder, kneads her claws into my lap and dreams of nipples while i type this poem. She’s jealous of your smile and tries to walk across the keys. Her paws pick out some nonsense that i can’t complete. She’s here. She’s purring, walking towards “Delete.” 2. In Which He Thinks of Her in the Web i think i sense your ghost screened there behind the pixels and each byte of blue text, floating on null air in ether just beyond my sight. i think it would be easy to drive you away with one wrong word yet i send out each strand anew like filaments from some absurd spider who makes his patterns just to catch the light, each filament 95 a string of words that someone must receive beyond the world, each sent like radio into the sky to beat against the stars and die. 3. In Which He Writes a Dating Sutra it’s not the water we should know, that passes through arteries and earth. it is the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, source of everything (even this man with glasses) that we should know. it’s not the salt that we should know, but water where the bitterness dissolves and all great matters matter less, divorce and death and infidelity and how the nervous man fidgets and twists across the table. it’s not salt that we should know but flesh that salt preserves. We know that flesh will rot and salt dissolve and wrists turn watery, lose force, but why not be in love till that day? Won’t that do, for now? 4. In Which He Muses on Saying No i’m trying not to love you but you fill my breath and eyes, inflate my helpless brain with blood and make me dream in luscious pain awake. But no, i promised. i will kill this lust for all of you, i’ll try at least 96 to turn the switch off in my groin, reboot my mind when it’s locked up on you, to beat my passions back into their cage like beasts, try to say no. Let my brain not say You, it’s you I want. Just be responsible. i’m trying hard but it’s too hard a test when everything inside me says to do the opposite, to let myself grow full of you, say yes to everything, say yes. 5. In Which They Kiss on the Couch i see her pupils dilate like black ink in soft white paper as her pelvis bone bites into mine, and feel her spirit link with mine, two bodies trying to be one as she pours into me and holds my face between her hands, and everything inside me tells me i should be inside her, taste her tongue and belly, flow in the deep tide, but “No,” she tells me, “Wait, we have to stop. We will make love but we should do it right.” “i’m sensing that the time to wait is gone,” i laugh, but no, she simply climbs on top, breasts to my chest, long hair pouring blonde light, and holds me gently, like a loaded gun. 97 6. In Which He Goes to Hear Some Blue Jazz Perhaps i should stop writing poems to you and just call up the deep-tissue masseuse who grinned at me all through the show. And through the set the singer smiled, sang jazzy blues to me then later in the diner ran her nails along my neck and leaned her cheek against my biceps, purring, while her man looked on. i leapt up asking for the check, apologizing with my eyes. Perhaps her music spellbound me, since when she stood and leaned into my chest i almost lapsed and kissed her. But i drove back...