I want to listen to Shane and Nora make love
let’s schedule around that
let’s listen to the breath escape in short sniffs and gasps
I can’t hear the bed
can you hear the bed?
I can’t feel the hot skin
I can almost feel the hot skin
can they hear us through the door?
are they thinking of us like we are thinking of them?
are they thinking at all?
is there hair?
is it good?
it sounds good
I want to be wrapped in sheets
instead of standing here holding this umbrella
how old are they anyway?
they seem young
they aren’t lying
they are trying so hard to be quiet
or their sex is just quiet
is he in her?
what are their mouths doing?
how are they situated?
I like to lose my mind in sex
are you into sex?
do you talk during sex?
I like to lose my name and my life in sex
I like to float around the room
I like how Nora doesn’t wear make up
I will stop wearing make up
and I like how confidently Shane pitched his movie before
I should pitch my movie like that
I like this time of year
cracking the sidewalk ice with my boots
going to new restaurants
it sounds like they have stopped
or it’s too muffled
do they mean to include us?
I like how it sounds
I like the rush of sex
how it melts the clock
I think I can hear it again
Shane and Nora
those religious sounds
of asking
While I was a tremendous teenager, you were still reading the unauthorized biography of Bowser
you were holding a pube to the light
you were pressing your silly putty back into its egg
I was already part of an art movement
when you were asking when your birthday was
you were attempting to sing a jingle
you were tasting your bath water
I had the gall to put all my money on black
you were talking softly to your toys
you were asking the World Book about sex
I was gunning down the highway while they shot my documentary
you were forking peas all afternoon
mulling over a bubble in your wallpaper
nervously saving your allowance
you were playing Rock Paper Scissors by yourself
I couldn’t be bothered to respond to my fan mail
but you were choosing a middle name for your rabbit
you were trying to digest yesterday’s strudel
you were still in your mother’s pouch
you were pretending tic-tacs were illegal
you were putting your ear to a puddle
that’s why it’s hard for me to relate to you now
because I have a night club named after me
and you are still looking for your Lego’s head
Dream Boy
I play in the eyes
the eyes are TVs
the eyes look out to the hillside
I flip the channels
I run through the body
I watch the mind spark
I write in my own thoughts
I stroke the brain absentmindedly
I’m gross
covered in tears
and blood and whatever else
but I sleep in the balls
I struggle up the ribs
I sleep in the mouth
I can’t die
I’m a fairy in a boy
I’m listening to the droning of who’s talking to him
I can read by the eyes
the eyes let in a little light
I can escape through the ears
but I just beam out
I ball up into fuzz
I burst in the air like dust
I stretch over him like a tight suit
the boy is mortal can’t do anything but live
I grow bored of the boy
and make things out of the boredom
I predict the boy
I dream up his dreams
and press them in
it all feels like maintenance
his friends drone on and on
the fluids! the mucus!
I need to bathe away from beings
I need to spend a summer in the garden
like last summer
but always a dimwit intrigues me
his voice dragging like someone from a war
a stiff dream trailing into the bar
I want to see the civilization inside him
where the ends lead
never is it as enriching as a book
always he meets a being
a woman from the supermarket
or his own staggering self in the mirror
I should be exploring tombs
like Elsie does
but the smell!
I can’t imagine
Deodorants grow bored of their smell
they breathe it in and can’t think of anything else
an Unscented one takes on a metallic scent
they overwhelm themselves and want to run out
but last forever and slowly lose their minds
Rachel B. Glaser is the author of the poetry book "MOODS" and the story collection "Pee On Water." For more information visit Rachelbglaser.blogspot.com or for less information check out her tweets. Previously: Rachel B. Glaser's Three Digital Quilts and Four Poems.