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.

The Orange Hatter

She is the orange hatter. Holding
orange rose blossoms
against black lace.
Bride marrying
a fish;
a plaid, handsome fish.

He watches her walk,
holds stern hands together,
to keep
from touching
a brunette flower in gold trim.

She is beautiful, the flower, with
agony’s gaze.
With child.
Matching orange bouquets with the bride.

Flushed in the background,
a lemon princess smiles.
Throwing innocence on
holy ground. The only
child left.

Left by Mother, (un-photographed),
because
Mother had no bouquet, just
a bastard lemon child
in a basket,
in July.

July has taken more lemons than
given. From dumpsters.
From wombs.

Some, children of children.
Some, children of
addicts,
victims,
shame.

Some, children of a flower in
Gold trim, holding on to a matching
bouquet
of a Bride.

Dear Desire

Oh, I have been kept,
too long
refrigerated.

My tongue itches for links of
Vienna, a
swallow of
germ juice. Emptiness is
a plague,

a manic,
internal,
thirst.

My crossed legs quiver
on cue at
red storms
ice score

over a Ranger Hound. Ah!
What a hallucination
I devour!

A deserving,
choice
New York Strip
with  liquor lips
and packing hands.

Dear Desire, would craving be
craved if
bark met
bark even once??

If so, I’ll keep the craving and
you can
keep the steak.

My Lord Who I Do Not Know

My Lord,

I know you in language,
not
by your fingertips,
or your tongue,
or your eyes,
or your voice,
or heavy petting,
or lip smacking.

I do not know the scent of your release,
or the heaviness of your desire,
or the longing in your sighs,
or the length of your reach.

I do not know your grip,
your push,
your gasp for a breath,
your touch,
your taste,
your hunger.

My Lord,

I know you in vocabulary,
in depiction.

I know you in daydream
where
I have felt your limit,
where I have forfeited myself
in the aroma
of your pleasure,
where I have met you at the top
of the mountain,
the highest peak,
where we have gasped for air
together,
fingers entwined,
legs braided,
excreting deliquescent
adoration.

My Lord,

I speak in daydream,
lost in lust language
where I know you.