Worst Day Our Affair Has Seen
for D.B.A.

i.
growling me away from your dinner of a poem
growling me away from your dinner of poetry
from the poetry you are supping on

just when your were breaking fast, breaking bread
I interrupt, you show your teeth, warn before you bite

ii.
I push away at sex because
it's in the way like an obstruction
like a great big bolder in the road
I want to, need to, go beyond, get beyond

I push away at sex because
I want to go deeper, I want to love you truly
so I push away at sex to get it to move
it’s stubborn, it’s a roadblock

I was right after all
you do imagine that it is priced
that it is prized beyond all else

it is not worth to me as much as a lot
that we have shared
but in a world framed by sex and money
how can we get at the worth of what we're worth
at the worth of poetry

I've given up sex, I've given up money to write
I've given up love that promised
the things of this world to have you
who have little or nothing to give back

enough to be able to love who believes in poetry

our partnership allows me to write
the best poetry in the world
what a reward this is for the world
we make it a different place entirely
or slightly

value highly the difference loving you makes
your loving me makes

you want to demean us
mean, you want to undo us, you want to reverse

faced with verse or to reverse, my inclination
my raison d'être is to go forward
will go with you or without you
wanted us to go together, to journey on
to journey far

how far we've come
is something wrong
you want to get off

iii.
maybe it is a good time
to break up with you and to get on with life

it is or was, beginning to get in the way anyway

it got in the way yesterday, we in the way of us
we preventing me from doing things I wanted to do
for you, to do for us

whatever happened to yogurt from Cuba
did you drink it

how was it - what did you add to it
was it as thick as semen
its thickness was what I liked about it

plain though, with its sour taste, was not my favorite
strawberry was more palatable

one I had during the first week of my visit though
was my favorite

I've heard that orange is good
adding nutmeg to the plain I gave you
Susana recommended
did you try that or did you empty it down the drain

it seems you only like hot dogs and pork chop
and peanuts any way, and make up and wigs
to hide behind and to hide beneath
and to be skimpily clad to reveal it all

oh God I'm loving you and hating you
and myself as well
and I am close to tears with hurt

you are the person in this world
who is most against us, who is least on our side

I hear the struggles of life,
the struggles you struggle with
things you grapple with

who and what you wrestle with
in the background of our conversations

when the shifts occur, when the life you're in
when the life around you
is in the background

and then for a time I'm in the background

shifting back and forth between values
between these realities

like my having since I was conceived
to block Kemp Road out
push it out and keep it out
when it wants to break in, to break through

difficult not to let it
does at times, let it or not

want to belong to a world of letters
you want to too but would it let us

want to fuck you, would you let me
want to fuck you to make you mine
to belong to you deeply, to possess you deeply

want to put in the background
the culture and persons your life is filled with
to which and to whom you belong

know it is a herculean undertaking
maybe it is futile, the futility of Sisyphus
with his stone to roll eternally up hill
which rolls eternally back down

it is a whole life I battle with, I know
try to have you to myself, for myself
you have an appetite
of your own to satisfy
I want to treat you like desert


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
Written on Wednesday, June 16
between 1:30 p.m. and 3:50 p.m.