Fingers coming together,
snapping spaghetti straps
of gin-stained silk chemises,
the slanted hems sand the nerves
along the skin of smooth-waxed coffee thighs
shadowed by mahogany and cherrywood.
Then Romanians on stilts,
dry-walling cathedrals,
dance on the ribcage of a piano and
hungry koi kiss the strings of the guitar,
They salt the liquid before the boil
while the meat of the dish is stuck in the throat -
the air’s the dimpled glosy shine beneath
a water strider’s feet, impossibly unbroken
Then - her scalpel slides through the tension of
the smoke and breath and
upper teeth against etched glasses,
and a blue autopsy begins, one minute in,
wetly, dulcetly extracting our dripping hearts
and adding her voice, the alchemical ingredients,
upon the scales that weigh them.