But Still

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 1997 by Snyder, Jennifer

But Still

The street turned into a cannibal.

Love, the scary slang, slept in the zoo, and woke, and shed its red dress, and spoke pornographically.

I went inside with a turned-on poem in my prayers. I should change my hair.

People are suspicious.

The bells are loud today.

A half digested clang blooms its woman body.

I say yes to it.

It will cover my way with lusts.

Each lisp of muscle thinks:

I'm your zodiac.

Your gaze is slick to me like piranhas from the sky. We'll walk the toothy hordes together, my body the crumb of a stammering carnation.

I put it down on a greasy bench,

and we should cry for it, not tears but things like crazy flags of grasping, and dirty rhymes, and dresses, and stash them around where the five o'clock light begins to bleed.

What I want is to die before you die.