What should we be tonight?
You’re a blackbird, I’m a queen
I’m a handful of berries
and you’re the hand

kneading slick skin clusters
until I’m just shy of bursting
caviar blood that stains
your palms for days.

Lead me through backstreets
through boystown
and the curious triumph
of good music and better pills.

And if we find a doorbell?
Ring it. You grab my hand in the dark room,
hand me a bottle.  What is it? I ask.
Don’t worry, just drink.

Under the bridge
you take your wings out
soft and jet
like a velvet painting.

What should we be tonight?
I’m a queen and you’re a bird,
I’m pyracantha and you’re caught
in my fruit-laced thorns

where you feast for hours

until your teeth ache with sugar
and I’m covered with feathers

and you’re out of your head—
broken glass, first blood—

flying frantically
in circles like a blackbird
caught in the attic.