sun-stained canvas,

water-coloured temples,

an aphoristic constellation on her anatomical right; two slow dancers.

(the desire path etched by astronomers of old: see stars, weave meaning, find home.)

 

a silver knife,

love-pink dragonfruit,

the splash of broken glass slipping across still water; obscenely beautiful.

(rough gauze asymptoting softly, reverently, tracing its way ever-so-close to oil-paint lips.)

 

my vice of choice,

the apple of my eye,

god's name spat through clenched pink teeth; proper sacrilege.

(brush caught in teeth, tipped with red-hot avarice, singing eden across the canvas.)

 

the chime of glasses,

the spill of bottled-up laughter,

the tossing back of heads, drinking in the inertia of a stolen moment.

(a salve for the bones, a subcutaneous relief, a song for which no instrument suffices.)

 

a stoppered vial of the sharp inhale she takes

before she places her sure hand

over my shaking one.