Lapdance
             
There were werewolves
in my yard. I wanted to look back
but couldn't. I was afraid
that there would be a thousand women
with platinum dyed hair
who wanted to crawl between my legs
and wave their tired arms across my chest
to get away from the mountains.
My lap is as big as The Allegheny Mountains
and is not an ice cream shop.
It's not a massage parlor or yoga studio on Broadway.
I want all the Zen Buddhists to know:
my lap consists of one torn up thigh,
a broken shin
and three glasses of whiskey covered in wax.
Still, the Mexican laborers come at midnight and my daughter,
at four in the morning,
to sit,
when the moon and stars in her head have begun to dissolve;
when my lap is not a lake in summer and not a refrigerator
for the stoned kids
as morning is a long way away.
My lap is an onion.
It is a fire that burns between rivers.
So, come and sit.
Put your body down between my legs and dance into your golden brown skin
like you have lost your mind.
It is a prison and it is a wet road. If you drive into it at 90 miles an hour
you will skid off,
down a cliff
and into the ocean
where the waves will rumble up the rocks and smash you to pieces.
And if you are smashed to pieces, come sit,
rest down,
know that my lap is not for you
and has no place in the world of parliament and politics.
It is a soft seat with terrors.
It belongs to no one and has ice on its edge, satin closer to the middle,
a middle made up of matches. Nine times out of ten
it will burn you down
and then it will burn your house down. But sit,
come with your family and your Christ,
with your mortgage broker and marbles.
Kneel in, I beg of you,
rest your linoleum and lilac bones,
fall asleep if you want, dissolve,
paint a portrait of yourself, exhaust yourself,
then lean your cheek in and whisper,
goodnight.