death shall come and shall have your eyes*

If I could bleed, or sleep! 

If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Sylvia Plath

baby not even the heat gets to me these 

hot days
i know

and know you know

i am alive

by pure coincidence
by a set of strange conjunctures
like you i apprehend pain clumsily then go finish off some other chore
and like you i
have three meals a day
now try to imagine
this string of casual smiles
which has forged my eyes
this way
i am a magnet pole
fallen in a box of needles
no i am a woman
or a box
and you are a need need needle
please inject me with what you will
that i may exhale with relief
please come to me
to wipe off these embarrassed smiles
to put to rest
these squinted eyes
(death shall come and shall have your eyes).

* Cesare Pavese