when i look at girls in a bar

canticle for you would go something like:

i i i i i i i  

or thermos of you would come out cool, lit
and slither, i am a snake- you say,

but the way the bent branch
ends your vertebrae like i was capital letters
on a page somehow you inserted me formal,
a terrible "Mr", a "dear" that i never received
or
you misspelled with your tongue and i was the roadkill
you eyed as you passed the mile-marker,

sure i am alive, naked as gravel, not thin and
skin tight, you know like shaved meat
where you can almost see my ribs and little kidneys,
  my other okay organs too.

i say you looked beautiful
like stilettos look beautiful sometimes
or the right foot is quite like the left
and my tongue was so heavy in my head
i should have left it in my mouth
or maybe swallowed to one thousand.

i shouldn't have said it, never again,
now it's like i am the old shoe
with new laces, re:
the last of my kind, the endangered

i should be on some kind of charitable pension
where i can't be looked at,
its with my eyes where the trouble starts.