2 September 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 3

A Morbid Education

by MIGUEL MURPHY

In the middle of it, being riven

apart by a finger, by a stiff tongue probing

the blind bone tail of my spine

blind, until I salt like despair

every fetish in the book comes

screaming, Erection!

Little Goat! Little SoftHard

Hunger—here's vomit, says the book, here's urine

here's your blood at the mouth of the absolute—

get fucked!

                    Don't you wish every nightmare knifed

like this? Pleasure raising

the red welt? Religiously burying

your face hot in virus? I'm living inside

absence like a drum

begging, repeating, I'm a slave and I like it. I'm a slave. What

makes you think you know, adolescent,

what you like? In the Encyclopedia Of Unusual Sex,

excrement is eaten, and mucous, and vomit. Repeat it

to yourself: Shit on me. Oh. Baby. Puke

on my fucking back. Go ahead, laugh. But this

is what some men dream about. Softness

betraying death. Blind choke off the body

ruthless in its own bad breath. Heartless

white molestation—it's midnight

before I'm finished

reading and when finally

I release my own unbroken hymnals

everything safe self-ruins in the frenzy. The first time

I felt true love I was alone;

No one could protect me.