Your English professors teach you how to dismantle a sentence;
hold its bones in your right hand and remove them one by one with the left.
They tell you to look for the subject and the predicate,
then identify the verb and the action it is speaking of.
If my body were a sentence, I would want you to be the dismantler.
Peel away my tissue-paper skin and scatter the syntax that lies below;
like a gravedigger, bury the remains of it in your backyard.
And when the syntax is gone, analyze the diction
as if your life depended on it.
We like to pretend that every sentence is meaningful; every sentence
is recognizable and able to be understood,
but the truth is that not every single one really is.
So take away my semantics.
Make love to my vowels
as slowly and languorously as the sea;
your mouth pronounces them wonderfully.
Perhaps your English professor taught you about subject-verb agreement?
No need to worry.
We already agree with one another.
But perhaps you could take a few more notes on my paper,
then erase all the rough edges away
as tenderly as you would unzip a woman’s dress
and unwrap her body
before holding it to the light.