She bites like cranberry juice, like an oyster,
a potato peeler scraping all the skin off
in tandem with the seasons. Too much in
summer, too much in winter, too little in
springtime and fall. She is bone marrow,
a necessity in the making, flipping
bodies like mattresses and waving crows
from her hair. She is a thump in the night,
a bedbug you snuggle; rattling cages
she swipes the credit card of the mind
and all comes back:
Insufficient Funds.

Persnickety but messy, she jingles the
wind chimes and dismisses all the pots and pans;
flowers catch her where she walks,
sashaying as a pendulum and when her lips
she opens she loosens all the shoelaces,
tripping up lads and ladies galore.
Her shadow does implore her to stay in
the light, but darkness is her guide as she
makes music with matchsticks and the
cigarette butts she fills the ashtrays up with
as though it was her life’s work. She
isn’t a curse, more like black cat, an
omen of things to come. Taking her

thumb she turns the pages, directing
herself with the ease of an elephant, graceful
and without regard but with ginger step;
a conquest, no doubt. A lioness in a shout.
A roaring turbine her arm swipes free,
as she tumbles towards me and hooks me
like a trout. I am helpless, and reeled in,
and breathless in her grip she slips me from
my flesh and nestles,
kisses. Nuzzles like a fawn.

It’s an acid trip.