Nina - Ma'am!!

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.