Like They Are In Love

I have magazine images in a black book,
of brides
and cakes
and a mad hatter wedding.

Orange has become a pattern. I follow it,
on to the pavement laid
over a four-tier that I chose.

And has it come to be?
Has this compact icing eaten
away a beautiful day?

I have hoarded slice after slice
from red weddings
and pink weddings
and green weddings, that I never want to attend.
I stuffed them under pillowcases,
in closets,
under my un-kept single bed,

meant to be pulled out on a day when
buttercream will whisper at me about
the way I should dance,
like I am in love,
like I know how to make four-tiers
come alive with
lilies and
lime.

I will pull the slices out
with white diamond
shoes, but by then, I am afraid,
my legs will not remember
how to move like they are in love.

A Shrewd Dance

The top of the stairs is a lonely
place to
sit

buttoned up
blotted out
a
human splotch spying

on a beautiful
dance

her name is dusty
a cryptogram
enticing
men of solution

to
descend

she extends a maze with her hand
he reaches
to
her

one touch
a crushing warmth
he
enters a
twisted, bending, twirling
riddle

at the bottom of the stairs
from the bottom
of a
casual heart

where dusk sways
in
out

entangling him into her
crafty dance

He Is Allergic To Peanuts

We cooked, cooked together
smashed meat with boulders and fried it
on rocks. We drilled into eggs and
drank the yolk from it’s own shell.

We smiled at each other with leftovers
in our teeth…

I grated peanuts into piles of peanut dust behind my back, while
he played a song that
reminded him of me.

The music tickled on and he sang
and we sang together. We danced and we
danced together.
To the piano, we were not graceful
but the drums could tell we that we were delicate
and practiced; together.

My hand clutched the peanut dust tightly as
he held, held tightly onto my waist.
He spun me around to
face him, our eyes met.

He closed his eyes, we closed them together.
He leaned in to kiss me.
I leaned my lips to my hand and blew, blew
the dust in his face.

He was stunned – breathless. Choking, he fell to the floor, tears
puddling in his eyes and he cried,
we cried together.