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The Woman Who Ate Poems

                                                          Jennifer Van Buren & Alex Nodopaka

She will not touch Hamlet

Or try to understand Verlaine

but falls all over Fleurs du Mal

His spleen consumes her virtue

For mood she craves ceaselessly

Desperately yanking it from me

We write we hanker poetry

Except I do not eat mine

Her hunger is multi-pleated

She is the opposite of me

Which instantly is gratified

When I liberate

Her intimately folded poems

And play with the silk

Hand-stitched threads that separate

Her delicate papyrus signatures

And oh no

She does not staple her lyrics

They are handmade doggerel

Deep, diminutive and to the point

They put a spell on her and me

Like a blow from Merlin’s wand

Oh no! She is not a wicked witch

And we never feign mutual respect

We gush inflaming innuendoes

That create chaotic ballets

Of intermingling verse

Birthing passionate cantos

That suck inside out our infernos

And satiate our oral segments

Morpheus takes over supremely

lets our fingers rest finally

On stained honeyed moons          ~a.n.

                 ~

refusing my prescription

I will not eat poetry

Rimbaud has got nothing on you
(or me)
            .....well

we do share transparent skin

and flesh,
corroded

I see right through

write me off Dr. A
deny your own cravings

for petals pulled from the flower of death

rose hips       snapdragon lips
chromoplasts    bleeding
anthocyanin        ground down
carotenenes,          flavones

 
I remain
at your feet
until you say
don’t make something out of us

and you remember
leaving something on the stove

I hide
among steam that condenses on the glass jars
labelled cardamom, lemon pepper

until under my fingers you believe

my lies:

of course

I eat poems
spiceless and raw,

fresh off the street          ~j.vb.