I want to split you open like an

orange and feel the juices leak down my

jaw as I press each segment to my

sealed lips: a citrus secret.

The crescent of thumbnail

that raced across your pebbled

flesh is ragged now, scented, wet.

The peel discarded, a shattered globe

hot in my hollowed hand as I suck on

the tiniest bitter seed: you are ravaged.

The pulling-apart, the separation:

whole-ness cannot be wished back

in the act of spitting out or the loop-stitch

of pretty words.

I have chewed each

sweetness out of you.

All that is left is rind.

The discarded remains of the
love letters I fail to write you are
pinstriped orphans with cliché-lips,
purple-prose teeth and abandonment
issues, the most shameful waste
of words since the first time man (doomed)
looked at woman, rib-gaping, with a
glint in his omniscient eye.

The lamplight flickers with new glow
(the Creator sets the sun and moon on
the mantle of the universe), and each
yawn threatens to devour me
whole: the sweet refuge of your
gorgeous body in my rumpled bed
an avid temptation. I sip at cool coffee,
milk-film  crafting clouds on the surface,
and each blank leaf under my quivering
pen is another sexual creation,
physical regurgitation, a literal
labor of love (Sarai feels the
thrum of life in her century-old
womb).

My rhymes slide down my unraveling fingers,
contractions overtake my senses, and I
press my dark head against the hushed
paper and breathe out like Noah, weary,
at the first lick of rain. The imprint
of my sleepy mouth on creased white
is a more eloquent metaphor of my
simple, girlish adoration than the
the song of Solomon and
I dream of only you.

You wake me up with your
lips at the crook of my knee,
a scrap of paper caught behind
your ear, and you wear my
silence well. I wonder how many
drafts God penned of the Bible, a
goose-quill splintering in His massive
fist, before He pressed them into
pages. I wonder, as you sweep the
coffee cup off the desk and set me
down upon it (heart bared, knife-throat,
I am Isaac) where exactly He tucked
the times He got it wrong, and did
He get this kind of
applause?