I Was Born Again the First Time I Lost Time Watching a Woman

on the subway lose control    of the rain     in her hair
by untying the tight pact of her bun

Help     is the new Amen     Amen, I’m drowning
in women who know what they want

you bread the tilapia   hands gloved in powder
while I tell you about the trip home
a woman spilled her groceries

on the platform eight oranges rolled across the dirty floor

I watched her recollect the planets
and knew something

small and bright as a lime    I bent down
Can I amen you?  and after being born
and born again I was born
again—

do you know what I mean, tilapia hands, let me
turn on the faucet    I know the joy

of Marie Curie sleeping with radium
women aren’t lovely   they’re love

we live in the bitchery of honesty
you, you     most especially
murdering lemon

over fish and singing
a dum-dum song about my ass
you, you     magentamouth transfixtress my magnet

those oranges constellated from yellow line to trash can
her fingernails
lurched fuchsia and turquoise
a cigarette parked behind her ear

cigarettes and fruit, what she put in her mouth
we gathered the flock of

at the top of those subway stairs
hugged in white light
a silver-haired woman

dressed to the nines and tens
pulled the leashes
of two saint bernards
mannish with drool
manifested their attention

and mine     a red kerchief’s splash and woo
at her throat
while down below
the stranger awarded me

an orange which I later peeled in one go while the snow ate my clothes like a man

the air smelled floral
like the earth

was ours     and bragging