Untitled

Carry your wife

across the threshold – 

Force-feed her

milk and Foie Gras.

Coddle her

in cloves and honey –

       

Give her time to thaw.

Wrap her gifts

in fine French tarragon –

Keep her drunk

on Bombay gin.

Watch her dewy

belly bloat –

       

Help peel away her skin.

Wash her hair

with knots of ginger –

Don’t tell her

where she lives.

Board her doors

With snakes and chives –

       

Don’t let her feel the wind. 

Ⅲ

There will be a day for us

    much later,

when we pass on

the street as strangers.

You will fumble

with some nothing

in your pocket

and I will cross

the street,

as if I hadn’t

seen you.

Her

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her copper eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of almond skin.

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her stranded

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass.

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes,

to paint her white teeth silver.

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

This is the final draft of Her. I edited it down under the advisement of my poetry workshop professor, however I kind of miss some of the omitted lines....Thoughts on which version is stronger? 

Her (Original)

Her mouth is like my Mother’s

but not as coarse as she might

like for it to seem. I watch her

features soften, her lips to silk,

her voice to cream

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her almond eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of milky skin

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her lonely

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes

in hopes one night they’ll kill her

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

And suddenly, I’m caught,

tangled in her hair. That

milk chocolate mahogany

sits scalloped and unaware

of my helpless imagination,

and slowing circulation,

as I desperately whisper

my lustful prayers.

Athens

As if we were just

old friends you'd ask,

            How are you baby?

and I would reply,

            It won't stop raining.

You'd want to know,

if time ever mends?

and I'd tell you,

that time alone

brought Babylon

to her knees.

Then you'd ask if maybe,

I missed the fever

that came with the North wind?

and although I've missed it greatly,

I'll answer plainly,

that I no longer care

for such silly sins. 

Ⅱ

I should have run from you

he said.

I should have run.

But you’ll die in this world

she said.

Stuck in those sheets for days.

And I’ll be the one who finds you.

Such plans have Gods

of their own-