Blaze

Short History of One Hour's Desire

93 SHORT HISTORY OF ONE HOUR’S DESIRE For the lips of the recording engineer moistening each other as the lights bubble up For the drunken student’s breath of cloves For the staple guns of flamenco heels For the foreskin slid back over the chewy mushroom of oblivion For the lupus victim carried to her toilet For the throb of destruction in the baby’s temple For the deaf cartoonist’s nodding fist For the hiker’s last switchback before he froze For the mask-maker’s wall of weathered skulls For oiled springlets on an athlete’s brow For the Russian priest’s daughter, her tangles and tangles, her hip-length hair For the composer’s fingers stroking the businesswoman’s ankle For eyes of the safety patrol who knows how hunger hollows bones first For women skiing cross-country to find a place to be naked For flames centering fine Thai soup For the singed waitress delivering fried cheese For the language of touching after long absence For chicken-scratch dancers under the tamaracks For molas layering common cloth to brilliance For the grandmother fading while we go at it raw For clean incisions on polished clay—water spirit! For the shapes of animals on our genitals For the scab’s child uncovering a mailbox rattlesnake For the miracles tortillas wear on their faces For the hole behind the net catching a cancerous neighbor’s breath For the murderer’s first child, born retarded For the little junkie-whore who does not repent For the racehorse pumped full of painkillers For the vasectomized man who raises as his own his wife’s last child For the man who keeps three wives and is faithful to them all For the wife nearly ready to have children For Japanese flags, blood on white tile, no children For twin obese toddlers moaning for Twinkies For two fingers sewn back to the drummer’s hand For the split decision of young girls bathing For the stonewalled wife aiming into concrete For carpets unvacuumed since he moved out For the millionaire kneeling to edge his lawn For the husband grateful beyond questions for his wife’s return For the horror of prayers, answered and answered For the charango, the cuíca, the Día de los Muertos For shards of flowerpots later mistaken For the clear-headed moment lust recedes For musky, bone-shattering novelty For hundred-year-old letters uncommitted to the flames For all the juices we can suck from one another For the history of one hour’s desire ...