My affair with the beast
is not just
unfracking the grail
of its ventriloquised blood. 
Not just two altar boys
far past boyhood
kissing in a perfumed vestibule, 
a school in the earth
for that heaviness without
key, that worthiness
that destroys its bearer.
Not just the ribbed folding or 
unfolding of rightness, 
something on a binary scale
to leverage against 
ordinary gold. Not just 
the apartment made of ash
with a drain in the middle,
our soaked futures 
there. And at the end 
of the spill, I’d say 
maybe it’s just me, 
a hothouse orchid 
in someone else’s jacket. 
Prodigal blush, fortunate 
goose. Maybe it’s just 
desire, again, 
boiled and spun by
a frowning lord. Maybe,
maybe, and this one is
my favorite: it’s just
me and the moon—
the sweaty and new,
two hounds of nineteen,
always burning 
but never burnt.