sugarcube

{one of the local blue jays, sunning her or himself in the lilac bush... s/he let me come quite close before hop-fluttering away)

{tree in my alley, last week or so. i like to think that the force of the new buds bursting caused the branch to break in two}

This next poem is sticky & sappy (not the tree kind of sap, the other...) but at least putting it here will likely inspire me to fix it. Or delete the post -- I really don't write well when I feel all unrequited.

* * *

(if i were to kiss you,
i’d first press a cube of sugar
between our lips)

a little cube, sparkling;
amber-coloured grains
like spring’s early evening,
rusty call of a redbrown thrush,
smoky orange light –

tree shadows of birch-limbs
on the kitchen linoleum, our arms
up the xylophones of our
skinny little backs,

o i don’t mean to be so saccharine

you know; i would just slip
that sugarcube between your lips
like some balkan wedding ritual,
just like kusturica, ill-fated
promise of some pure & sweetened

life – but i missed your lips.

you were too busy kissing
that man with the hütz moustache
& there was no time for me
to press that sweetness to your face –

& frankly, ma belle,
i don’t believe he can temper
those salt-tears, sticky fears like
poppyseeds on the saucer, fannings
& grains at the bottom of your cup –

& o, i know we’d never last,
never a forever, no, in time
we'd dissolve leaving little tongues
sere & shaken, but i know

it could still be sweet, sweeter,

all those dusty grits of sunshine,
clouds & our sugar-golden spines
twisting us – so even
after we’d all fall apart
there’d be something remaining –

(something to linger, some shards
beyond saturation, o at least
we would remember that taste!)

* * *

Here is my favourite kitchen-dancing song of the moment:

Joro Boro, (mp3) by Balkan Beat Box... from their new album, Nu Med...