Koss

all the women who never loved

you hang in the message box

intermittent flapping laundry

sprinkled with bird shit and occasional

mapled swirling whirligigs

cross-species surprises, sudden boyfriends

and the jealous resurrection ex who rears

her grisly head

near-death encounters and great escapes broken

dates and those with ten-year-old photos

bonding over trauma with latte in lesbian-style

first dates with social workers

are there any lesbians who aren’t

social workers? show of paws

will pass on the processing

another gin, please

yes, the phone thing… unreturned messages

manic pit stops on idle, late-night saturdays

single-digit, half-engaged poking

girl-shopping-store boredom

I like this color, this material, this income,

this pretty face, this butch face, this femme face,

this aristocratic, wine-tasting face,

this gucci-wearing, god-loving preacher-woman

face, this big-toothy-smiling,

up-the-nose shot face,

this girl-dangling-the-dead-fish face,

this secretly-knowing, beckoning face,

this love-me-til-you-kill-me face,

this pill-popping-party-creature face,

this pilfer my wallet face,

this hiding-behind-the-tree face,

this fiction-faceted face,

and let’s not forget the someone-else’s-face

fast-break, teasing faces leading precisely

nowhere, circling the death pit

called internet dating

the girl-shopping-store

where dreams spring to uncertain pinging

life at furious data rates—faster

than superman, a premature climax,

the turn of a hand, a sputter of sound

or flutter of a human heart