Love Song for My Devil

Love Song for My Devil

My worship of you ends in dismay
as my wound becomes a dispatch
full of sweet licorice lies.

Adultery becomes advantage.
Motels morph into mother-cells.
My cheap dress becomes an even cheaper dressing gown.
My shoes with their stiletto heels,
now walk on stilts, unable to carry our heft. 
A fetish for pain is transformed; 
remakes itself into fetters for the painted lady’s 
	transistor.

Was your mastery of me,
a mastodon’s 
bondage to bone?

Did lust overcome fear
as a lute overcomes feathers? 
Or is memory just a whisper,
a mendacity, a whistling swan?

(From Loose Change - Ghost City Press, 2023)