lust is the big cruise ship pulling
into harbor, the one we're all going
to get inside when the time comes.
when the gods get bored & flip
the poles like a light switch,
when we realize that the stars are 
microscope eye-pieces, staring at us,  
the specimen's floor is white hot lava.
what an ocean the asphalt can make when you pound
on it till it ripples. the heat reverberating 
from the pavement is the ghost of 
my night shift father, lilting in &
out of sleep under the sun. the sun; 
bored of roofs & newspaper gift-wrap 
rips the darkness from beneath his
eyelids until he turns spectral. 
there's still an iteration of his soul
walking on the ceiling of the battery factory 
at midnight. that's when i meet
you deep in the ship's hull. i tell you
i lust you & it feels like a need to
pick up all the seashells off the beach
for myself, making necklaces under desk lamp,
hanging them from the rear view mirrors
of abandoned rust snickering cars
along the sides of highways. i tell you
i want to tapestry your body & we find
the wrong blankets to sleep under.
what's your room number? is there 
a spare key to this cock-
pit. you tell me there's no laws on the
ocean. the albatross is my father &
he's already sunk, sweeping sand
with a blue-handle broom. he's day bound now,
shooing away the dark like a swarm of gnats.
i'm making a night shift of us, a ghost
to board the big boat. the ink-stamper mattress
so that tomorrow, when we've both
fallen off opposite sides of the ship, there
will still be finger prints to wash off,
i want to remember each point of contact,
thumbtacks in the globe, cartographer-skinned 
children. we say "you're so young"
"so young" to each other. what is the queer body on
an empty vessel? hallway after hallway,
the sun rolls like a bowling ball,
for now, my love, we have this