Tender
In zombie movies there’s always a couple who fuck
one last time, drink some wine and just give up.
This is the only reason I can think of
to fall in love again. On first dates men often ask
how you would rather die,
I kid you not, drowning or fire.
They want to know my body even as it’s destroyed
by my imagination. The world is burning
and we can’t stop saying the word tender.
It’s the only language left for flesh, for helplessness,
the desire to be kind, etc. It’s the secret name
of every shirtless photo sent me
from the gym bathroom, clattering with light.
The sloppy calligraphy of the ten point buck half-velveted
and hoisted for the camera
on their dating profiles. Strop of tongue.
I want to be touched like the belly wants meat
or pills, some new combination of words.
On first dates I always make sure to say
I have a lazy left eye. They rub their thumbs
against my thigh—a scratch-off ticket.
They want to know my body as it loosens its leash.
Baby teeth unhooked in their holsters.
Slack bight of muscle in the face, pendant chain
still tangled in my hair when I turn on the bathroom light.
In movies there’s always one gutsy little zombie
dragging herself forward by the elbows,
as if I would do anything undead but lie in bed
watching reality dating shows and gnawing off my own hand.
In this episode the man is eating great platters of cold cuts,
in this one the women are crying
in the Badlands, their hairdos ruined
and revealing scalp. They have the hacksaw voices
of sorority sisters and flames taking a house
to the studs. There’s a virgin there’s a widow a zombie
in paste jewelry shoving rose petals in her jaw.
They keep rasping tender tender tender
but its been dubbed
into a series of questions and responses
about what they fear most.