licentious drudgery

i comb through pictures
of what it used to be: stuck,
picked clean of secrets,
deadly-and-deadlier
blows to time.

these solar-plexus blows
pitch me right in the chest
each time, innumerable,
suddenly descending at night
without tell-tale sign or tease.

body dependent. body, relent.
barely any skin stretches over
this skeletal memory except
the wet void of your mouth,
which i have gotten so used
to going without.