Mercurial Wrists
The way she froths at the mouth then explodes
into sexy blasphemy.
The way her lips sizzle then ignite—
Bananas Flambé.
Painted flames drizzle down to
scintillating nipple ring gleams.
Extraneous jolts of metallic highlights.
The way she displays her dead flowers in glass bottles
with broken necks.
The way she applies luxurious lashes.
Her delivery is measured & then doled out.
Metal spoons strung together; a stylized clink.
A mode of self-medication more exotic
than the flask. Guzzle is more erotic than muzzle;
but her intermittent sips trump the others.
Sometimes she wears the sequent spoons around her wrist, sequined.
Sometimes the potion drips down her long throat like black tears
from an ugly duckling’s eyes.
Sometimes she melodramatically sighs. A pale hand flutters up
to her face as if she might Victorian-style faint. She feigns
queasiness, rolls her eyes, then pours a dram
from the skull & crossbones bottle
hidden somewhere deep inside
her soiled lace petticoats.
The way she makes up her own eyes with a languorous, over-the-top glamour
she calls ‘Tarred & Feathered’.
The way today’s look is named ‘Little Bo Peep the Whore’
as she wields a tiny riding crop, exclaiming, “Faster Lambchop!
We must escape the damned rapscallions!”
The way she languishes in the background during barroom brawls;
waiting, simmering, forehead beading
like a shattered mercury thermometer.
Sometimes she needs a cold compress.
Sometimes she needs smelling salts.
The way she wrings her wan hands and laments
and then suddenly goes limp;
attenuated fingers dangling.
The way she poses as a mannikin,
then attacks. Tears out her hair
& it was a wig & a small swarm
of silverfish scurry.
Sometimes she unclasps her spoony bracelets to display
the stale stage blood congealing on her wrists.
Oh those mercurial wrists.
Oh those swoony hissyfits.
Oh that hysterical uterus
must be sedated.
The way if you licked her inner thighs,
you would taste the seams
of vintage wallpaper, yellow
& ornate & feverish.
Rotting glue
dissolving on the tongue
like a foetid kiss.
The way she doles out another luxuriant spoonful
of her mesmerizing nostrum.
Nori, Shiny Side Down
I can’t consume myself today.
I’m so tainted. Day old
sashimi on a bed
of gray rice. Rice alcohol slugging
through mercurial veins
and I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel
like the artfully assembled
spicy tuna roll w/ avocado nestled,
a perfect creamy puzzle piece.
I’ve come un-cylindered. Small seeds scattershot across…
Flat sheets of nori. Reams & reams &
reams of unwritten surfaces, words,
exotic sauces to be stirred
and I waste myself. I serve myself
as palatable display. Bright as a candy-stripe
shrimp to be de-veined, to be peeled & eaten, to be skewered
in a row with the little-mouthed others and the matching carapace.
Cherry tomato—me—pearl onion—me
with a saturating stab through the core;
with a gaping, drooling maw where my mouth should be.
Lips a sluice box, pinned up at the corners.
Pearl sac ripped open; blisters burst under the tongue.
A blastospheric spill of fermented wine.
Nacre slivered, spread, rolled into
spiked roe. Eschew the garnish; strew with shrapnel.
Wet-knifed cucumber strips striped
across shut eyes. Eat off the lids.
The sockets brim w/ baroque pearls nestled
in pickled pink ginger petals. From the fishy depths,
rhizomes thrust up to impale unsuspecting voyeurs.
From the raw and juicy depths, a tuberosity projects
to explode the spider roll, the dynamite roll;
to garishly slick the stiff seaweed.
Octopus Doll
little octopus doll
pinkish brown carnivorous squiggle
tooth ribbon
sometimes I hold you in my mouth
tiny suction cups stick to my throat
succulent confetti
sometimes I keep you in my makeup bag
with dark lipsticks and suspicious cold creams
shiny tubes flecked with blue blood
sometimes I stuff you in my girlie box
suckered arms dangle between thighs
black ink flows down my legs
it’s not pornography it’s poetry
because you’re so small and juicy
three hearts and poison saliva
next |
08 |
umbrella |
42opus
Juliet Cook