Your décor — my body is
a balance scale, my palms
are pans, and I bear mass
at the center of your table.
I glint gold up at you without
the knots of calluses. I round
your face, make you softer
and capable of looking down.
Be mine and you won’t have
to tear the bag with teeth and
one yank backward. You can
haul the scratchy canvas sack
of my body over your shoulder.
Your hands can shadow hems
as dusk draws the indigo hull
of her bathrobe tight around us.
When my skull crackles beneath
your foot, I think of Samson, and
how he sent the temple crashing.
The pillars knock into each other,
sanding their own limestone away.
Their grind jostles them into falling.
They trickle into the crevice between
my brain’s right and left hemispheres.
Royal Rose 