You do not mean this
as slang. Time, literally, stops
by your house, fucks your mom.
It’s not non-consensual, she
too is hungry to move below Time.
And she is open to alternatives.
You hear them all night,
their wails gag the walls,
the floorboards, the ceramic
of your bones. She has thrown
away her cloak and alarm clocks.
She measures dawn by absence
of desire, moon by rage
or sorrow. She does not measure
anything else—asafoetida for curry,
salt for meat, your fluctuating weight,
the distance between conception
and creation, banks and beggars,
thirst and pissing, how many islands
compose New Zealand—600
or 2, depends on how alone
you feel. Time, you hear her
murmur over the phone, offers
the most pussyblowing cunnilingus.
Time’s tongue knows tongues no man
has patience to learn. Do not mistake
any of this for metaphor.
She examines her hands all
evening, concludes one is larger
than the other. Symmetry is a myth,
like beauty, like DNA, like time
zones divorcing countries that waste
men on war. A waterfall
of bullets is the melody Time
whets its teeth with. You hate to end
a sentence like that. There is so
much time to think—think!
Everything will be over
by the time you walk
into her room, the orchestra
of their bodies having received
its applause, Time bowing down,
and your mom trying
to remember where she is
in her cycle.