Transparent Tap
| filed under: Poem, Chris Abraham, Pomes, Poetry, Writing, Creative Writing, Poet, PoemsLoose warm oil slips
below your temple and drips
from the chin like resin
i taste salted dough
taxis trumpet through windows
our bath dinned when oprah
asked him about her
and she about he
until you rinsed lather
into my eyes as i cupped
and made it squeak
the basin is stopped
and water rose
in 17th story rust
bath oil rose water and ivory
dimples your back
tiles swamped overflow sauna
towels thick in corners
drying you to me
stiff brushed pumice
soggy cuticles
spider hair stuck
in the slow drain
you run to watch and drip
i track nudity to couch
propped feet on coffee table
you press lotion from pump
and smooth thighs sticky
i scrape blades against
legs leaving strung shark drum
i suck on a toe tasting polish
hair eyes nose mouth ears neck
shoulders breasts elbows stomach
hips pubis thighs knees calves
feet toes i suck fingernail blood
ravines and i rise to eat jell-o
you smoke ashes fall
leaving carpet craters
i swallow milk
throwing grapes
gaping mouth
pink tongue
green and red
marbles splatter carpet
pheromone & funk
i sit and milk dribbles
not our room
feel grapes in toes
bugs slick under instep
milk dribbles
bowl of glassy jell-o
orange yellow red
in mouth between
teeth onto lap with laughing
green smile blue grin
red from nose and cough
blow to back
kiss smears paste slime string frog
ear tooth tongue
jaundice yellow
flushed redden color
you touch my knee grime in
nails like claws holding ruby
crystal soft and porous
urination in basin floating
flotsam and paper butt some
ashes stain trail to drainage
swirling gurgle and you saw me
sitting reading the post
you stand
colored with free-form jelly
stuck to bath and dirty nails
pouring gin & tonic
some lime
"don't drink it sans lime"
swirling ice clink bottles
small clear glass
peel oranges
and spitting pits onto floor
you were virginal before now
not sticky but before
when where
why not as is not bad
very good in fact damn this,
throwing newspaper crumpled
stand wipe
your turn
no secret indiscretion
paper planes from floor 17
bad down draft spiraling to
wet street
under trumpeting taxi to
times square 42nd street pimp
prostate blue balls yes i understand
why you didn't touch me this is
new york and we might carry the
city's legacy
i need some scotch
give me it straight no ice until
you know the results and we can
consume and resume
where is the god-damn light switch
how do you turn out these lights
how do you turn up the heat in this place
don't flush the toilet while i'm taking
a fucking shower
there isn't water enough
for god's sake
winter black jeans dry
on the radiator blue too
panties sizzle mentors scream
i slip on grape smuckers jelly
wouldn't slip on peanut butter
none of that.
©1993 Chris Abraham