The Value of a Face

save whatever you feel
for I am a baking woman
warming the painted lace
with the full breadth of my being

You are homeland foreigner
and sex on the side stage

I am natural breasts
and no tattoos

whatever happened to the suicide girls?
That night we drove to stripper songs
over so many bridges
and naked men in my dress

and thirteen miles
walked in the morning

We were so good at getting lost.

And I wanted to keep you
like strawberries on my salad
mimes that loose themselves inside you
and Patrick-

Dear God,
how I miss Patrick.

-with his eyes of the ocean
his heart of Allen Ginsberg

-I fell in love with you the very first day
when I startled you
inside the bunker

you thought you were alone.
I thought you were a deer.

and 20 years later,
I will remember you still.