The break-up poem. Because, you know, break-ups.

by eatonhamilton

Immaculata

Oh mud lover, oh dirt, oh sewage,

I’ve been wearing April like galoshes,

Stomping your ditch

in a swill of brown water,

nursing your weeds like tits.

 

Well, that’s over, it’s May tomorrow—

no more quicksand for me.

Is this love, this ooze and stain?

Your leeches ride my elbows.

Your scum exhales me.

 

Great exhaust, the monoxide

you call admirable

bubbles up from a low extreme,

up from the muck, up from the wallow,

hissing like a let-go fart.

 

There’s a stink, I’m raw from

this virtue, this clean clean clean rape.

Finger of smiles and lies,

I am on to you. Fecal soup,

your brown scrubbing

 

has a perfectly pious air.

Immaculate of the marsh,

sump pump,

diamond in a quagmire,

how to you rise and rise and rise

 

in your own estimation?

The trick of caress, say, a masturbation

toxic to others.

Never mind. Up you go, away, away,

dirty incandescence through the sun.

 

First appeared in Steam-Cleaning Love, Brick Books