Scorpio By Moonlight

Blue is for boys, so they say--
wrong to the core, for they never saw your bed with its
invitation to deep indigo.

Van Gogh, smitten mad for you, 
sublimated in paints what he felt and could not bear.
(So I like to imagine, my body stretched out among the stars.)

So clever you are, or careless--
half covered like a moon in transit across a narrow window.
You know I'll go to the breezy sill,

lupine and soft-coated, leaning for silvered water and finding
delicious madness in the warm curve of the offered half
of your celestially gifted ass.
______

for Karin's "Going Halvsies!" challenge at Real Toads

 

The Fable Of The Matryoshkas

When I met you, you already had
almost everything.

You spoke, and from a halved lime,
a golden-eyed tiger stepped.
From the tiger's mouth, came vermillion birds,
and in the birds' beaks,
silver rings to please you.

If I had told you I loved you then,
I could not have borne the weather of your face--
a clear sky of indifference,
or your smile, constant as any equator.

I knew,
that to win you, I would have to get beneath your heart--
I would have to fold my yellow wings,
with their India ink edges;
become vermiform
and as light as a ghost's fingers on a cotton ball.

There I slept.

After six Novembers and a single Spring,
I opened my eyes--
a solitary traveler when I arrived, I had become four.
You felt the North, South, East and West of me
within yourself, nesting your heart,
as if you were a Russian hat, and I, Medusa's vanity: her hair.

Now, we are together forever,
like bone and limb
or
the closed and golden gates of your almond eyes.

I am more than content to be your courtesan,
your slave,
your palm leaf, arched over you like Desire's own angel--
but if you dismiss me,
all the matryoshkas of our union will break.

You will see me, at last, as I really am,
a constellation of spilled confectioner's sugar
anointing these shattered nesting dolls
with their linseed smiles,
drug store red lipstick on every jagged edge.
_______

Matryoshka dolls, also known as Russian nesting dolls, or babushka dolls, consist of a series of similarly painted dolls, each one revealing a smaller doll inside it, down to the last and smallest doll, which is typically a baby.

Both images were found on Weheartit.com. 

Natalya The Psychic

Que sera, sera
was fine for the fifties,

but now there is Natalya the psychic.

Be nice to her.
Feed her, take her to bed;
whatever it takes,

because

she can pull visions from out of thin air.
She knows if you're gonna fall down the stairs,

but if she likes you, she'll take your arm,
smile like a Russian Blue,
and say, "Honey,
let's go down in the elevator."

Natalya the psychic
will know if you're faking.
Don't tell her you love her
if you're lying.

Pianos fall out of the sky every day,
and she'll send you on your way
without a blink or a word of warning
if you've been telling tales and screwing with her heart.

Love her,
fuck her sweetly on a Sunday morning
when you should be at church.

Pour the most inventive, smoldering, sincere confessions
from your lips to her ear,
as you move over her, easy, like cream over corn flakes.

Do these things and you'll have the love of a Russian Blue.
Lucky omen.
Lucky you.
_______

Dispensation

There is a line of demarcation
Between dawn and regret for the night;
There is a point of fascination
Where the black lace touches the white.

Tell me no, and I will go
Deep in the brambles, bleeding;
Tell me yes, you love me best
And I'll be your saint interceding.

_______

for A Word With Laurie at Real Toads

both pictures from weheartit.com