Matt Gilbert
Grim Reaper Roleplay
Your kneecaps are the eggshells we step
cautiously on so as not to disturb life,
cirrus clouds adrift on your ribs
from teaching me to use the edge of my hand,
now you ask I be the death of you.
I put on the black coats guests left on the bed.
Stalk the doorway, built with bleach
in the style of your mother the last time
you saw her body, a candle set
in your mouth to light the way
for wax to form you slow lips.
Death had such sweet hands on her.
We don’t remember anymore what we dream
but your nipples stand like chess pieces
when I take the best part of you in my mouth.
To pleasure yourself think of the sun eroding
the surface of Roman marble, stripping off
the worked color of paint you wear,
revealing the bone until your bed
is a garden of statues with the heads
removed and replaced with our heads,
so that after, after finished, even after
it explodes, your heart will be a sex symbol.
