The Map of Amsterdam
The Map of Amsterdam
What does love search for
if not to grow wings
and become a hermaphrodite.
Is it not the obsession of the loved one
to burn your summer
until you cook like escargot and die?
(I was kneeling in front of him,
my mouth on his hardness.
His knees trembled and swayed.
When I looked up
his eyes were closed
and he asked: Do you love me?)
Love, immobile happiness
of the swamp.
Who was he to my intimate places
to ask me that discomforting question?
Did his wings carry the same dark dirt
as my map? Had he found my scent in Paris
and lost it in the canals of Amsterdam?
Had he found that place in me—
the where,
where he could always return?
ii.
I had fallen in love with a man
who had a name to protect.
I shut myself in the bedroom for days
buried under shame.
Friends brought me look-a-likes,
but it only made me smell of bitter sweat
and dead gardenias.
I’d listen to them speak
as if from a far distance, eyelids heavy,
like stones swollen with salty wetness,
cheeks flushed as if with fever.
After a while, they’d find a hollow place
inside themselves and crouched there
until the storm around me abated.
Then I’d sing spirituals and tell stories
of birds and people with thin hearts.
Meanwhile the man with a name to protect
would walk around the city punching
every glass window he could find
until he’d reach my house. Friends
let him in. He’d sit on the edge
of my bed and trace his finger across the recess
of my ass. Everyone in the room would disappear,
leave the two of us together. No one ever
heard us talk— two lovers above time and space.
iii.
If you look closely, you’ll see a blood stain
on the letter W on page 2 of my map of Amsterdam.
And on page 10 you’ll find the same stain on the letter H,
page 18, the letter E, 19, the letter N, 22-L, 24-O, 27-V, 29-E,
and D- O-E-S on page 35. On page 41 N-O-T and G-I-V-E,
page 47 L-I-F-E, page 53, I-T-‘S O-N S-A-L-E.
What became of so much love?
It was 3pm and the pedicurist stabbed
the corns on my left foot.
My skin
was the perfect page
for the imprint of your fingers.
What does love search for
if not to grow wings
and become a hermaphrodite.
Is it not the obsession of the loved one
to burn your summer
until you cook like escargot and die?
(I was kneeling in front of him,
my mouth on his hardness.
His knees trembled and swayed.
When I looked up
his eyes were closed
and he asked: Do you love me?)
Love, immobile happiness
of the swamp.
Who was he to my intimate places
to ask me that discomforting question?
Did his wings carry the same dark dirt
as my map? Had he found my scent in Paris
and lost it in the canals of Amsterdam?
Had he found that place in me—
the where,
where he could always return?
ii.
I had fallen in love with a man
who had a name to protect.
I shut myself in the bedroom for days
buried under shame.
Friends brought me look-a-likes,
but it only made me smell of bitter sweat
and dead gardenias.
I’d listen to them speak
as if from a far distance, eyelids heavy,
like stones swollen with salty wetness,
cheeks flushed as if with fever.
After a while, they’d find a hollow place
inside themselves and crouched there
until the storm around me abated.
Then I’d sing spirituals and tell stories
of birds and people with thin hearts.
Meanwhile the man with a name to protect
would walk around the city punching
every glass window he could find
until he’d reach my house. Friends
let him in. He’d sit on the edge
of my bed and trace his finger across the recess
of my ass. Everyone in the room would disappear,
leave the two of us together. No one ever
heard us talk— two lovers above time and space.
iii.
If you look closely, you’ll see a blood stain
on the letter W on page 2 of my map of Amsterdam.
And on page 10 you’ll find the same stain on the letter H,
page 18, the letter E, 19, the letter N, 22-L, 24-O, 27-V, 29-E,
and D- O-E-S on page 35. On page 41 N-O-T and G-I-V-E,
page 47 L-I-F-E, page 53, I-T-‘S O-N S-A-L-E.
What became of so much love?
It was 3pm and the pedicurist stabbed
the corns on my left foot.
My skin
was the perfect page
for the imprint of your fingers.
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