for Jennifer
In my darkest night, / when the moon was covered / and I roamed through
wreckage, / a nimbus-clouded voice / directed me: / “Live in the layers, /
not on the litter.”
--in Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Layers”
She loves cheese.
Cheeky, I love her.
So I like cheese.
I lick it through her.
I lick deeper and salivate.
I taste salt and freckles.
Lemony tones.
Stolen orange from a tree.
A relaxed Spring in Sicily.
And deeper.
And deeper.
My tongue turned sandpaper.
Her layers wet picked away.
She tastes of warmth.
Warmth tastes like Yellow Stone.
A thin layer of crust.
Skin.
And a mega volcano within.
My tongue is aching now.
So I bite her bit by bit.
Hunger triggered by taste.
My appetite increases.
And I rip her ribs apart.
I can’t help myself.
But that’s never enough.
I want her whole again.
To repeat my feat, my feast.
So I need a desperate trick.
I swallow her.
And I stop here to confess.
I’ve been lying the whole time.
Taste's nothing without sight and smell.
A sense that needs some help.
Well, the whole truth too is one.
My digestion’s in French.
Soupe a l'oignon au fromage.
