Valentine

Saturday, February 14, 2015

We want it to be sweet

But it rarely is,

At least, not completely,

Like a not yet ripe cherry

We are anxious to devour,

We bite through the skin

To learn the truth,

Sometimes we get what we need

From not yet ripe or too ripe

The juices dripping

Down inside us to fill us up

Too bitter or two sweet

It is always hard to choose

Though we soon learn

Unripe ripens over time

While too sweet is the last lap

Before the last gasp

And in this we are engaged

In a life and death struggle

We know as love

Bursting out of us,

Dripping down our chins

Sweet and sour at some time

Leaving us to wonder

How we can endure

The hot and cold of it,

When in truth, the best part

Is the first bite, when we do not know

If it will be sweet or not,

Part of what makes it so perfect

Is its imperfections

The off center rose,

The different colored pearl

The slanted lips we kiss

And know we’ve kissed

For the shape they take

Around our lips,

Not too sweet or too sour

Not too hot or cold

Fast or slow,

Soft or hard,

But just right

This trust we accept as truth

No more solid than

The ever changing universe

We live in, real only because

We make it real,

Solid only because we take the chance

To bite the fruit in the first place

Sour to sweet we take it all in.

Orange marmalade

Monday, February 02, 2015

The tang of it stings my tongue

As I lick the curved inside of the spoon,

Lumps of rind still cool from the refrigerator

Clinging to my mouth as I lust for more

The kiss of sweet saddled with the lash of bitter

Lapped up and consumed

Unable for me to tell which is which

If indeed there is a difference,

And in hungering for sweet we must accept the bitter

I rarely spread across bread instead consume it

Straight out of the depths of the jar

Rattling my spoon at its bottom,

Licking as deep as my tongue will go

First around the grooves near where the lid screws on

And then into the deep of it, each inch

A painful reach that makes me ache the deeper I go

I can never get it all, as deep a reach as my tongue has –

Even my fingers, scraping the bottom

Can’t get at all the fruit, hidden in the crevices

And I settle to licking off what my fingers have found,

And still not in the least satisfied.

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The scent of flowers

Sunday, February 01, 2015

I part the pedals with my fingers

To feel what is inside

Flushed red and moist with dew

That I taste with the tip of my tongue,

This humming bird existence

Of near invisibility

Cloaked but not immune,

Caught up in the quicksand

Of my own desire,

In need of compassion

To ease me out

When I delve too deep,

Buzzing wings to keep me hovering

Until the moment I can again plunge in

I hear the moan of the pedals parting

And the groan when I ease out

My back heavy with sap from the middle.

They say honey tastes like the flower

From which it comes,

Yet none tastes so sweet as this

Or rich or thick,

Poured over me with nectar too heavy

For me to fly far

So I sink again, and again,

Sinking into the froth I am too drunk to drink,

Covered head to toe

With the scent of flowers.

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